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THE 





! OF THE ^^IIEII SIAIES, 



AND THE TARIFF. 



REPORT 



OiN THE 



ASSESSMENT AND COLLECTION 



.^' 



< 



OF DUTIES 



ON 



IMPORTED SUGARS: 

ON THE RESULTS OF AN ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL INQUIRY 

INTO THE RELATION OF THE SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE 

UNITED STATES IN ITS SEVERAL DEPARTMENTS OF 

PRODUCTION, IMPORTATION, REFINING AND' 

DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCT, TO THE 

. EXISTING FEDERAL TARIFF. 

DAVID A^" WELLS. 



NEW YORK 

1878 




V<f>^ 






CONTENTS. 



Page. 

Nature and Importance of the Subject of In- 

VESTIGATI on 7 

Sugar as aii Import 7 

Yalue of Imported Sugars T 

Business of Sugar Refining 8 

Sugar as a source of National- Revenue 9 

Consumption of Sugar an Index of National 

Prosperity 9 

Per rapito consumption of Sugar in the I nited States, 

Great Britain, German \' and Russia 10-11 

Relative Sugar CoNSU^rrTiox of Different 

Countries 1 1 

Sources of Sugar Supply- to the United States 13 

Foreign Supply ■. 13 

Domestic do. 14 

Proportionate Consumption of Foreign and I>omPstic 

Sugars 15 

Maple and Beet-root Sugars 15 

Sugar from Sorghum 16 

Glucose, or Grape Sugar 16 

Prices -OF, Foreign Sugars i8 

Varieties of Raw Sugars recognized in Com- 
merce 19 

Brown, or Muscovado Sugars 1 H 

Clayed Sugars 2<> 

Centrifugal, or New Process Sugars '21 

Former and Existing U. S. Tariffs on Imported 

Sugars 22 

How Duties on Imported Sugars are Assessed 

AND Collected 23 

What is the Dutch Standard -4 

Equity of the Dutch Standard '. -5 

British Customs Classification : . . -6 

Suffar Tariff of 1870 27 



IV. 

Influence of the Tariff of 1870 on American 

Commerce and Industry 29 

Present Condition of the Business of Sugar 

Refining 32 

Weighing • 33 

Sampling 35 

/ Relation of Recent Improvements in the Manu- 
facture OF Sugars to the Existing Tariff 

AND Classification of Sugars 40 

Investigations of the U. S. Treasury 44 

Charges against Refiners 49 

Adulteration of Sugars 51 

■ Statement of Mr, Hewett 52 

What shall be the Future Tariff on Imported 

Sugars? 56 

The Present Duties on Imported Sugars excessive ST 

Ad valorem Duties on Sugar 58 

The two-grade Specific System 60 

The one-rate of Duty on Sugars 61 

What interests will the one-rate be likely to specially 

benefit ? 62 

What interests will the one-rate be likely, or certain, to 

injure ? 66 

The American Sugar Refining Industry 68 

Relation of the Sugar Refining Business to the Labor In- 
terests of the country 71 

Sugar prohibited from entry into the United States 72 

Will a one-rate of duty benefit Domestic Consumeis?. . , 82 

Effect of a uniform rate of duty on the ]S"ational Revenues, 88 
Raw Grocery Sugars; does the existing tariff exclude 

them? 90 

Classification by the Polariscope 91 

Opinions of Prof. Henr}^ 91-93 

Objectioivs to the use of the Polariscope 99 

Opinions of Prof. Chandler 101 

Influence of the presence of Glucose on the accuracy of the 

Polariscope 106 

The Boston plan for the use of the Polariscope 10*7 

Plan proposed bp the Committee of Ways and Means. . . . 110 

The Polariscope as a Detective 110 

Plan proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury Ill 

Conclusion 1 1 2-110 



July 8if/z, 1878. 
To Hon. David A. Wells: 
Dear Sir, 

It is almost universally agreed by all who have examined the 
subject that' the existing duties on imported sugars, and the 
methods by which the same are assessed and collected by the 
Federal Government, are faulty and unsatisfactory. They have 
given rise to grave suspicions and accusations against importers, 
refiners and merchants, and undoubtedly offer an opportunity for 
the undervaluation of some classes of sugars purposely manipu- 
lated abroad to assimilate to the lower range of American classi- 
fications. They needlessly obstruct the development and pros- 
perity of one of the largest departments of foreign commerce ; 
liamper a great branch of the manufacturing industry of the 
country, and also tend to impair the public revenues. 

At the same time it must be recognized, that there is not an 
agreement among the representatives of the interests involved as 
to the facts in the case, or as to the reforms Avhich it is desirable 
should be instituted ; and that this want of agreement is likely 
to constitute in the future, as it has in the past, the most serious 
obstacle in the way of obtaining from Congress efficient, intelli- 
gent and equitable remedial legislation. 

Under such circumstances, the undersigned Importers, Refiners 
and Merchants dealing in sugars, recognizing your experience 
and success in dealing with matters pertaining to the trade, in- 
dustry and commerce of the country, and your methods in the 
l)resentation of results, respectfully request that you will insti- 
tute a careful examination and inquiry into the entire subject 
of the assessment and collection of duties on imported sugars, 
and report at an early day the result of your investigations. 

By complying with this request, it is confidently anticipated 
that some plan for the assessing and collecting the duties on 



imported sugars may be devised which will command the sup- 
port alike of the consumers, importers, refiners, and of the 
National Treasury, and so secure its adoption by Congress at an 
sarly period. 

We are, 

Yours respectfully, 

MOSES TAYLOE & CO., ^ 

E. D. MORGAN & CO., 

VNem' Ilork. 
H. H. SWIFT & CO., I 

HAVEMEYERS & ELDER, J 

S, & W. WELSH, Philadelphia. Pa. 

THEO. RAYMOND & CO., Norwich, Conn. 



November, 1878. 

To Messrs. Moses Taylor & Co,, E. D. Morgan & Co., 
H. H. Swift & Co., Havemeyers & Elder. S. W. 
Welsh & Co., Theo. Raymond & Co. : 

Gentlemen : 

In accordance with the request contained in 3^our let- 
ter of July 8th, 1878, I have made the subject of the 
assessment and collection of the duties on imported 
sugars, and the present very serious commercial and 
industrial embarrassments and difficulties growing out of 
the same, a matter of careful study and investigation ; 
and herewith submit a statement of all the essential facts 
pertaining thereto, with such conclusions and recommen- 
dations, as in my judgment, seem warranted by the 
combined facts and circumstances. 



And first as to the 

Nature and Importance of the Subject Matter 
OF Investigation. 

The business of importing, producing and refining 
sugar, constitutes one of the most important branches of 
the commerce, the agriculture and the manufacturing in- 
dustry of the United States. From the duties levied 
and collected on the importations of sugars, molasses and 
melado (concentrated cane juice), the Federal Govern- 
ment at present derives about one sixth of its total annual 
revenue— a larger amount than accrues from any other 
special sources, except from the internal revenue on dis- 
tilled spirits and tobacco; and into every family in the 
land — not excepting even the very poorest — sugar and 
molasses enter to a greater or less extent as essential 
articles of consumption. Questions of embarrassment and 
difficulty, growing out of the methods by which heavy 
taxes are imposed and collected by the Federal Govern- 
ment on sugars and molasses, are not, therefore, ques- 
tions, as may be popularly supposed, of interest and 
importance merely to importers, refiners and merchants, 
but they concern either directly or indirectly the whole 
people, and from a fiscal and industrial point of view, are 
secondary only in their present claim on public attention 
to the question of currency and banking, the refunding 
of the national debt, and the ordering and administration 
of the tariff and internal revenue system in general. In 
proof of these averments, and for the correct under- 
standing of the whole subject under consideration, atten- 
tion is next asked to the following particulars. 

Sugar as an import. — In the list of commodities im- 
ported into the United States, sugar (including under the 
term, molasses and melado), stands first, in respect to 
both value and quantity. 

In value it represents nearly one-sixth of all our im- 
ported merchandise. Thus, for example, the aggregate 



8 

value of all commodities, exclusive of specie and bullion, 
of foreig-n growth or production imported into the United 
States in 1877 was $451,323,126; but of this amount the 
value of imported sugars was returned at $81,187,504. 

\n bulk or quantity it comprised in round numbers, in 
1877, one billion five hundred and eighty-four millions 
(1,584,000,000) of pounds; which, assuming the average 
capacity of the vessels engaged in the sugar trade to have 
been 500 tons, must have furnished an annual business 
to the shipping interest to the extent of some 1,500 car- 
goes. 

The Business of Sugar Refining. — An}^ exhibit of this 
great interest which should stop here, would, however, 
be exceedingly incomplete ; for unhke tea and coffee, 
whicli are imported in a condition suitable to enter into 
immediate domestic consumption, nearly ail of the im- 
mense sugar product of foreign countries which comes, 
or rather is permitted to come under the existing tariff, 
to the United States, as well as no inconsiderable portion of 
the domestic product, is wholly unht to enter into con- 
sumption until it has undergone a process of refining or 
purfication According to the census of 1870 this busi- 
ness of sugar refining, measured b}" the value of its pro- 
duct, ranked ninth in the order of importance of the so- 
called manufacturing industries of the country (flouring 
and grist-mill products, sawed lumber, boots and shoes, 
clothing, cotton goods, woolen and worsteds, carpenter- 
ing and building, forged and rolled iron taking prece- 
dence in the order as enumerated 1, 4,597 hands being em- 
ployed, with an annual disbursement of $3,177,288 in 
wages. But the statistics accepted by the trade in 1878 
give to the existing business of sugar refining a much 
higher place among the industries of the country than 
was assigned to it by the censusVeturns of 1870, and indi- . 
cate a present employment of some ten thousand men; 
and also, that before the 1,500 millions pounds of foreign 
sugar annually imported into this countr}^ enter into con- 



sumption, the refiners expend, in order to make the same 
marketable to the people, an average of one cent per 
pound, or an ag-g-regate of some fifteen millions of dollars 
per annum. And yet further, that of this great annual 
expenditure, a very large proportion accrues to labor, of 
a multiform character, employed in great part directly 
within the refineries. 

Siigai' as a Source of National Revenue. — The next im- 
portant phase of this enormous importation, manipulation, 
and consumption of foreign sugar, is its relation, already 
briefly noticed, to our national revenues. Speaking more 
specificall}', the Federal Government in 1877, out of a 
total custom revenue of §128,223,207, collected nearly 
thirty per eent. of this whole amount, or $37,080,819, from 
the duties on raw sugars, cane-juice or melado, and mo- 
lasses. 

Consumption of Sugar, an Index of National 

Prosperity. 

Sugar, in some of its forms, having become a con- 
stant and essential article of food to people in* almost 
every condition of life, the fluctuations in its annual 
aggregate consumption have come to be regarded in all 
civhzed States, as one of the most reliable indications of 
relative national prosperity ; consumption increasing as 
the ability of the masses to purchase and consume in- 
creases, and diminishing as their resources become re- 
stricted and their earnings diminished. This has been 
found to be the experience, alike in the United States 
and in all European States where reliable statistics for 
deducing conclusions are available. Thus, for example : 
in the United States (exclusive of the States on the 
Pacific) during the y^ar 1856 — a year of great apparent 
prosperity — the consumption of foreign and domestic 
^:«;2^ sugar, was estimated at 848,422,00c pounds. The suc- 
ceeding y^ar 1857 — a year of national financial panic and 
depression of industry, the domestic consumption of 



10 

sugar at once ran down to 220,000,000 lbs., or to an 
aggregate of 628,000,000 lbs. ; but speedily recovered, 
and in i860, the year preceeding the outbreak of the 
war, attained the then unprecedented figures of 929,- 
600,000 lbs., or 29.56 \hs. per capita. 

After the commencement of the war the consumption 
continued to increase for a time, and was 968,000,000 lbs. 
in 1862; but declined to 636,000,000 lbs. in 1863, and 
494,278,000 lbs. in 1864; or to 25 lbs. and 19 lbs per 
capita, respectively, during these years for the popula- 
tion of the loyal States. 

The year after the conclusion of the war i, e., 1866, 
the consumption (of the Atlantic States) increased to 
877,358,000 lbs., or from 19 lbs. per capita in 1864 to 25 
lbs ; became 1,188,000,000 lbs. in 1870, or 31 lbs. per 
capita-, and 1,591,206,000 or 37.8 lbs. /^r capita in 1874. 
Since 1874 the eousumption of cane sugars, of foreign and 
domestic production in the United States (exclusive of 
the Pacific States), has very noticeably diminished ; fall- 
ing from 1,591,206,000 lbs. in 1874 to 1,474,746,000 lbs. in 
1876; but rising to 1,492,274,000 in 1877 5 o^ Irom about 
37 lbs. per capita in 1874, to 34 lbs. in 1877. The de- 
crease in the consumption of foreign sugars in 1877, as 
compared with the consumption in 1876 was 4,166 tons 
0.70 per cent. 

An examination of the recent statistics of the sugar 
consumption of the United Kingdom also leads to similar 
results. Thus, in Great Britain and Ireland the per 
capita consumption of the sugar in 1856, a prosperous 
year — was 27.2 lbs. per capita. In 1857, a year when 
panic occurred in the United States and British trade 
was interrupted, the British consumption of sugar ran 
down to 23.3 /^r capita. In 1870, the year of the Franco- 
Prussian war — when almost every department of British 
industry was fully occupied, the consumption of sugar 
in the United Kingdom rose from 42.5 lbs, per capita in 
1869, to 47.2 lbs. ; and continued to increase until 1875, 
"when it attained a larger proportion than ever before 



II 

experienced, viz. : 62.85 lbs. /^r capita. Since 1875, how- 
ever, the consumption of sugar in Great Britain, as well 
as in the United States, has notably fallen off, and this, 
notwithstanding an increase in the population of the 
United Kingdom of about 700,000 during the years 1876 
and 1877, and the marked cheapening in the price of 
sugar, consequent on the repeal in 1874 of all duties on 
its importation. 

Again, no more striking illustration of the difference 
and inferiority in the quality of the living of the people of 
Germany and of Russia, as compared with the quality of 
the living of the people of England and the United States 
can be found, than in the circumstance, that while con- 
sumption of sugar (of all kinds) in the two last named 
countries, is at present respectively at the rate of 
about 60 and 38 lbs. pa capita'^, the consumption of 
sugar in Germany is at the rate of only 19 lbs. /^r capita, 
and in Russia is as small as 7 lbs. per capita. 

Relative Sugar Consumption of Different 

Countries. 

The following table exhibits the amount of sugar of 
all kinds, estimated to have been consumed by the leading 
nations or States of the world during the year 1875, and 
further illustrates the fact, which is always a surprise to 
those who have not specially investigated the subject, 
that the United States, although consuming at present 
about a tJiousand and five Jinndrcd million poinids of sugar 
per annum, does not nevertheless hold the first place as a 
sugar-consuming country : 

Great Britain Consumption 900,000 tons. 

Germany 315 ,000 

France 275,000 

Russia 250,000 



<( 



(< 



* For direct use as an article of food, the difference in the per capita 
consumption of sugar in Great Britain and the United States, as will be after- 
wards shown, is far more apparent than real. 



12 



Austria Consumption 

Spain 

Belgium , = 

Holland ' 

Turkey 

Sweden and Norway 

Portugal . 

Denmark 

Switzerland 

Greece 

British Colonies not producing 

sugar 

United States 



170,000 tons. 
50,000 
50,000 
30,000 
25,000 
20,000 
15,000 
15,000 
11,000 
3,000 

200,000 
740,000 



Total 3^69,000 tons. 

It will therefore be seen that, although the United States 
consumes one-fourth of the total sugar consumption 
of the above-enumerated States (which total comprises 
the great bulk of the world's consumption), yet the aggre- 
gate 2M^ per capita sugar consumption of the people of 
the United States is at present notably inferior to the 
aggregate and per capita sugar consumption of the people 
of Great Britain. Thus, the total consumption of sugar of 
all kinds in <^//the United States in 1876 was estimated at 
745,000 tons, or 1,669,000,000 pounds, which, divided 
among an assumed population of 45,000,000, gives a frac- 
tion over 38 pounds per capita. 

On the other hand, the consumption of sugar in Great 
Britain and Ireland in 1876 was 900,000 tons, or 2,016,- 
000,000 pounds, which, divided among the estimated pop- 
ulation of the United Kingdom for that year — 33,089,237 
—gives a consumption of 60.8 ^^o\xw^'& per. capita, or an 
amount about 38 per cent, in excess oi\\\Q per capita con- 
sumption of the people of the United States. For the 
year 1877, a year of financial and industrial-, depression 
in Great Britain as well as in the United States, 
the official returns of Her Majesty's Commisssioners 
of Customs indicate the actual sugar consumption of 



^3 

that country to have been a little less than in the pre- 
vious year, or about 60 pounds per capita. 

The reasons for the greatly increased consumption of 
sugar in Great Britain and Ireland, as compared with 
the United States, are mainly two. First. Sugar is used 
in vast quantities in the United Kingdom for certain pur- 
poses to which it has not yet, or not to any great extent, 
been made applicable in the United States : as for ex- 
ample for distilling and brewing, and also, (a fact little 
known in this country), for the feeding of cattle. Second. 
Sugar in Great Britain, since the repeal in 1874, of all 
duties on its importation, is about one third cheaper than 
in the United States ; and the effect of this repeal was to 
at once carry up the importation of sugars from 14,130,- 
041 cwts. in 1874 to 16,264,000 CAvts. in 1875, and the/^r 
capita consumption from 56.3 lbs in 1874, to 62.8 in 1875. 
The importation of molasses into the United Kingdom, 
consequent upon the repeal of the duty, also increased 
even yet more remarkably ; or from 338,552 cwts. in 1874, 
to 768,410 cwt. in 1875, an increment in a single year of 
over 100 per cent. 

Eliminating from the figures representing the present 
annual aggregate sugar consumption of Great Britain, 
the quantities there used for distilling, brewing and for 
cattle food ; or in other words, restricting the comparison, 
if it were possible, to the quantities of sugar used 
directly as food by the people of Great Britain and the 
United States, and it would undoubtedly be found, that 
the difference in the per capita consumption of sugar in 
the two countries is not very considerable; and perhaps 
not as great as might naturally be expected to accrue, 
from the greater cheapness of the article in the former 
country as compared with the prevailing prices, enhanced 
by the tariff, in the latter. 

Sources of Sugar Supply to the United States. 

Foreign Snpply. — The chief foreign source of the supply 
of sugar to the United States is the Island of Cuba, which, 



a 



a 



*4 . 

during the year 1877, furnished about 60 per cent, of all 
the sugars imported into this country. 

The amount of sugar imported from various foreign 
countries into the United States for the year 1877 is indi- 
cated by the following table : 

Cuba . . 926,163,842 lbs. 

Porto-Rico . 62,733,886 " 

Spanish Possessions elsewhere. 161,089,740 '' 

Brazil 74,327,436 " 

British West Indies and Guiana. 127,140,363 " 

Dutch East Indies. . 39,676,415 "■ 

French West Indies 48,210,896 

China. . ... 17,842,724 

British India and Hong Kong. 8,247,474 

Dutch West Indies 7,756,758 " 

Mexico 5,269,705 " 

England; 56,118,558 '' 

Germany . 19,065,373 " 

Belgium 9^134,375 '' 

All other countries 21,385,279 "■ 

Total.... 1,584,162,824 '" 

Domestic Supply of Sugar. — Ever since the annexation 
of Louisiana in 1803 a not inconsiderable source of supply 
of cane sugar to the United States has been the home or 
domestic product. But the increase in the production 
and consumption of domestic cane sugar was especially 
noticeable during the decade almost immediately prece- 
ding the war, or from 1850 to 1859 inclusive. 

Thus, in 1850 the proportions of foreign and domestie 
cane sugars consumed in the United States were as fol- 
lows : 

Foreign sugar 320,924,800 lbs. 

Domestic " 282.681,280 " 



Total home consumption . . 603,606.080 



15 

Proportion of home product to total consumption about 
47 per cent^ 

In 1859 t^G following- changes in consumption had 
manifested themselves : 

Foreign sugar 535,548,160 lbs. 

Domestic '' 430,416,000 " 



Total home consumption. . 965,964,160 " 
Proportion of home product to total consumption about 
45 per cent. 

One further circumstance in this connection is also espe- 
cially worthy of attention. The increase in the consump- 
tion, and consequently in the production, of domestic cane 
sugar, from 1850 to 1859 inclusive, as will be seen from 
the above tables, was about 53 percent., a ratio of growth 
in a great and long established branch of national industry 
that is almost without precedent. But this immense in- 
crease was achieved under a comparatively low and 
diminishing tariff; the rate of duty on all imported 
sugars having been 30 per cent, from 1850 to 1857, and 
after 1857 24 per cent., while the average duties under 
the existing tariff (1878) on all imported sugars is about 
62 per cent. 

The effect of the war from 1861 to 1865 on the produc- 
tion and consumption of domestic cane sugars was very 
striking. The product of the then three sugar producing 
States, Louisiana, Texas, and Florida, for the year 1 861-2, 
was unprecedentedly large, and was estimated at upwards 
of 191,000 tons, or 427,840,000 pounds. In 1865, how- 
ever, this branch of industry had become so nearly ex- 
tinct, that it was estimated that no more than 5,000 tons 
of domestic cane sugar entered into the total sugar con- 
sumption of the country. But during the last decade, or 
from 1868 to 1877 inclusive, the production has again 
rapidly increased, as will be seen from the following 
tables which exhibit the absolute and proportionate con- 
sumption of imported and domestic cane sugars for each 
year of the period under consideration • 



i6 



Table showing the absolute and Proportionate 
Annual Consumption of Foreign and Domestic 
Sugars in the United States, from 1868 to 1877, 
inclusive. 



Years. 


Domestic Consumption 
OF Imported Sugars. 


Consumption of Do- 
mestic Cane Sugar. 


Proportionate 
Consumption of 
Domestic 
Cane Sugars. 


1868. 


997,289,331 R). 


51,522,000 1). 


4-90% 


1869. 


1,007,625,757 


100,800,000 


9-10% 


1870. 


1,183,089,146 


104,832,000 


8-14% 


1871. 


1,166,394,287 


178,304,000 


13-28% 


1872. 


1,346,942,550 


• 156,353.000 


10-40% 


1873- 


1,378,498,832 


132,832,000 


8-80% 


1874. 


1,511,456,915 


108,640,000 


■ 6-70% 


1875. 


1.575.893,948 


142,240,000 


8-30% 


1876. 


1,561,880,545 


172,480,000 


9-95% 


1877. 


1.455.387.854 


199,360,000 


12-08% 



The grade of sugars produced in Louisana is com- 
paratively high, and rarely falls below what is termed No. 
10 of the Dutch Standard. The protection given to 
domestic sugars of this quality under the existing tariff, 
corresponding grades being compared, is about 60 per 
cent, ad valorem. 



Consumption of Maple and Beet-root Sugars in the United 
States. — The above statistics, therefore, fully exhibit the 
various sources from whence the United States obtains its 
supplies of cane sugar, and the quantities afforded by these 
several sources of supply. But in addition to cane sugar, 
of domestic and foreign production, there also enters in 
to the sugar consumption of this country a considerable 
quantity of maple-sugar; the annual product of which 
however appears to be rapidly diminishing ; 28,443,000 



17 

pounds, according to the census returns, being produced 
in I870, as compared with 40,120,000 in i860; while the 
present annual supply is admitted to be much smaller than 
in 1870. The cause of this decrease is undoubtedl}^ due in 
part to the destruction of our forests ; and also to the fact, 
that such increased facilities are afforded by the railroads 
for transportation, that sugar from the maple tree can- 
not be sold as cheap as sugar produced from the cane. 
Beet-root sugar, the manufacture of which is prosecuted 
on an immense scale in various States of Continental 
Europe, holds as yet, but a very small place among the 
industrial products of the United States ; the present 
aggregate annual product — mainly the results of opera- 
tions in California — not being estimated as high as 2,000 
tons. 

Sugar from Sorghum. — Confident expectations were 
once indulged in, that the Sorgo cane, which can be cul- 
tivated successfully in most of the States of the Union, 
would prove an important source of domestic sugar sup- 
ply ; but these expectations have not been realized ; and 
the yield of Sorgo sugar is now very inconsiderable. 

Glucose or Grape Sugar.— Attention should here also 
be called to the fact, that within a comparatively recent 
period, the manufacture of grape sugar, or glucose, by the 
action of sulphuric acid upon the starch contained in 
Indian Corn, has been entered upon with great success, 
and now bids fair, at no distant day to become, especially 
in the form of syrup, a great staple article of domestic 
commerce and consumption.'-^ 



* Ghtcose or Grape Sugar in the United States ; its Manufacture and lines ^ 
A recent number of the American Grocer gives the following account of the 
manufacture of Glucose or Grape Sugar as carried on at present on a large scale 
in the city of Buffalo, N. Y., and of the uses to which the product is applied : 

"We found a structure, seven stories in height, and covering a space of 80 by 
100 feet, with each of the seven floors fitted up in the most elaborate manner to 
accommodate the enterprise which it occu[)ies. 

''The corn from which the grape sugar and syrup are f)l3tained is taken to 
the top floor of the building by elevators direct from the cars, and is there crushed 



i8 



Prices of Foreign Sugars. 

The total returned value of the 1,584,162,924 pounds of 
sugars imported into the United States in 1877, ^^ the 
ports of exportation, was $81,187,504; which gives an 
average price of 5,12 cents per pound. The difference in 
the price of foreign raw sugars in the various countries, 
from which we import them, is, however, very consider- 
able ; as will appear from an examination of the following 
table. 



Table showing the cost of Sugars imported into 
THE United States during the Year 1877, at 

THEIR SEVERAL POINTS OF EXPORTATION, OR LOCAL- 
ITIES OF PRODUCTION. 



Country of Export. 

Cuba 

Porto Rico 

Other Spanish Possessions. . 

China. . 

Brazil 

Dutch East Indies ......... 

Dutch West Jndies . . . 

British East Indies 

Danish West Indies 

British West Indies, &... 

British Guiana 

French West Indies .... 



Quantity. [Aggregate Value. 



926,163,842 lbs. 

62,733,886 " 

161,089,740 " 

17,842,724 " 

74,327,436 " 

39,676,415 " 

7,756,758 " 

4,413,021 " 

3,558,716 " 

127,140,363 " 

48,210,896 " 



$52,702,160 

3,182,734 

5,279,809 

623,950 

3,155,078 
1,569,029 

303,376 

166,621 

126,359 

6,426,803 

2,274,019 



Value per lb. 



5.70 cts. 

5.07 " 

3.28 " 

3-50 •' 

4.25 " 

3-95 " 

3.91 '' 

3-77 "■ 

3-55 " 

5-05 " 

4.72 " 



into pulp, after being cleansed of all impurities and extraneous matter. It then 
undergoes important chemical changes, which convert it into a gummy semi- 
liquid, and this, after being subjected to further processes and minute filtration, 
is changed again into a pure, limpid thick syrup. This is called glucose, or 
grape sugar, by the manufacturers ; is mnch whiter than refined cane sugar, but 
less sweet. By further process it is converted into starch sugar, or, as it is gen- 



19 

The variations in the price of imported raw sugars are 
due to variations in the qualities — saccharine strength and 
purity — of the same, and constitute the basis on which 
alone duties which are in any sense ad valorem, and so 
entirely equitable, can be assessed and collected. 

Varieties of Raw Sugars Recognized in Commerce. 

The varieties of raw sugars recognized in commerce 
are three : the '* brown' or '* muscovado'" sugars, the *' clayed'" 
sugars and the '^ ceittrifTcgal" sugars. 

The several processes by which the above enumerated 
varieties of sugars are produced are in the main as fol- 
lows : 

I St. Brown or Muscovado Sugars. — These sugars are 
produced by evaporating the cane juice in open kettles or 
coppers over a direct fire — the oldest and simplest of all 
methods for the manufacture of sugar. In Louisiana 
four coppers, varying from 400 to 100 gallons capacity, 
are generally used. In the first one, called the clarijier, 
— which is furthest from]the fire — a moderate heat only is 
applied, and lime is at the same time added to the juice, 
for the purpose of faciUtating the separation of the liquid 



erally called by the trade, 'grape sugar,' a product which looks not unlike 
refined mutton tallow, or paraffine in cakes, and which, although not possessing 
sufficient saccharine properties to take the place of cane sugar for family use, is 
of the greatest utility for many manufacturing purposes. Brewers, tobacconists, 
druggists, confectioners, vinegar makers, &c., use it freely. In the production o* 
beer and malt liquors it is much preferred to ordinary sugar ; and is also highly 
esteemed by confectioners, liquorice makers, &c. The delicious cream-candy, 
which has recently been so popular, is largely composed of grape sugar. 

"Grape sugar and syrup are cheaper than the lowest grades of cane sugar 
and molasses can te produced for, and this fact will tend to largely to increase 
their consumption. Considerable quantities of glucose are used by wine growers, 
as the saccharine principle best fitted for their use, where grapes are deficient 
in this property — the saccharine matter being in both instances nearly identical. 
The cordial makers of Copenhagen and elsewhere are also using it freely. 

"The factory of Avhich we are speaking produces easily three hundred 
ban-els of syrup or sugar, ready for market, ttaily, and these facilities are 
taxed to their utmost capacity ; so much so, indeed, that its work is uninter- 
rupted, day and night, from one month's end to another." 



20 

from its impurities. Asjthe juice concentrates, it is trans- 
ferred by bailing to the other coppers and subjected suc- 
cessively to a continually increasing- temperature ; con- 
stant skimming of the liquid being necessary to remov^e 
the scum and leculent matters that rise with the boiling 
to the surface. In the fourth or last copper, called the 
^'striking pan,'' the syrup is concentrated to a degree 
sufficient to be capable of granulation, when it is trans- 
ferred to coolers of wood or iron, about 12 feet long, 6 
wide and i foot deep. In these coolers, the juice or syrup 
soon ceases to be liquid, and when fully crystalized and 
hard is transferred to hogsheads having holes in the bot- 
toms, through which the molasses drains into a cistern 
below. This process of evaporation is very wasteful and 
laborious ; requires much fuel and yields a typical dark 
brown sugar, not tobe viistaken for any other variety, called 
muscovado, and an enormous proportion of molasses. 

2d. Clayed sugars are prepared by pouring the cane 
juice or syrup, concentrated by boiling to a greater con- 
sistency than for muscovado, into conical riioulds or pots 
of earthenware or sheet-iron, set with the apex down- 
wards. These pots have each a hole at tbeir lower extrem- 
ity, through which, after the sugar is set, the molasses is 
allowed to drain. After this drain has continued for some 
time, a layer of clay, thoroughly moistened with water, 
is spread over the upper surface of the sugar, the mois- 
ture from which, percolating through the cone of sugar, 
dissolves a portion of it, and also washes out the less pure 
molasses from the interstices of the sugar grains or crys- 
tals. When the clay cover becomes hard from the loss of 
its water, it is readily removed, and replaced by two, 
three and even four applications of wet clay, or until the 
sugar becomes tolerably white, the process lasting about 
three weeks. " When the cone of sugar is removed from 
the mould, it is found that the layer at the base, which 
was the top during the claying, is white for about two 
inches, then yellowish or greyish, and lastly, towards the 



21 

apex of the mould, it is brown. This is due to the more 
complete washing which the upper layers have received 
during the claying. The cone is cut transversely, so as 
to separate it into three grades of sugar, which are dried 
and boxed separately, as white clayed, yellow or grey 
clayed and brown clayed sugars." 

3d. Centrifugal Sugar, is the name given to sugars 
which have been purified or separated from molasses by 
the action of what is known as the centrifugal machine. 
This consists of a large hollow metal wheel or cylinder, 
turning upon an axis, and having its sides pierced 
with fine holes like a seive. The moist undrained 
sugar, prepared by any process, being placed in the 
interior of the *' centrifugal," the wheel is then caused to 
revolve at the rate of from 1,000 to 1,700 times per 
minute, when the molasses contained in the sugar, by 
the action of the centrifugal force, flies out and escapes 
through the holes in the sides of the wheel. A very 
small quantity of water, is then thrown into the 
centrifugal with a syringe, to effectually complete the 
process of washing, after which the rotation is stopped, 
and the sugar removed. The comparatively recent ap- 
plication of this machinery — before in use for the drying 
of cloth — to the manufacture and refining of sugar, con- 
stituted- an immense improvement in this branch of 
industry ; inasmuch as it accomplished in a few moments, 
i. e., the separation of the molasses from the sugar— what 
requires days in the draining of muscovado into hogsheads, 
or of clayed sugars into moulds. 

All of these three varieties of sugar — '• Muscovado," 
'' Clayed " and "■ Centrifugal, " have each their separate 
external, or physical characteristics, which are so marked 
and peculiar that any expert in sugars can at once decide 
on the most superficial examination, to what variety 
any given sample belongs which may be submitted for 
classification and appraisement. 



^1 

Former and Existing Tariffs in the United States, 
OF Imported Sugars. 

The following table shows the rates of duty that have 
been imposed on sugars imported into this country, at 
various times from 1789-91 to the present time. 

1789- 91. On rav/ and clayed sugar, i cent per pound. 
" On i-efined do. 3 cents " " 

1 79 1- 97. On raw and clayed sugar, i^ " *' " 
On refnied do. 5 " " " 

1 797- 1 800. On raw and clayed sugar, 2 " " " 
" On refined do. 9 " " " 

1804-1808. On brown and clayed sugar, 2^^^ " " " 
" On refined do. 9 " " " 

1812-1816. On raw and clayed sugar, 5 " " " 

" On refined do. 18 " " " 

1819- 30. On raw and clayed sugur, 3 " " " 
On refined do. 12 " " " 

1832- 41. On raw and clayed sugar, 2^ " " " 
" On refined do. 12 " " " 

1842- 46. On raw and clayed .sugar, 2j^ " " " 
" On refined do. 6 " " " 

1846- 57. On all classes of raw and refined sugars, 30 per cent ad valorem. 

1857- 61. On all classes of raw and refined sugars, 24 " " 

March, 1861. On raw sugar not above No. 12 Dutch Standard, ^ cents per lb. 
" '• On refined sugar 2 " " 

August, ]86i. On raw sugar not above No. 12 D. S. 2 " " 

•' " above No. 12 " 2^4 ", " 

" " On refined sugar .4 " ". 

December, 1861. On raw sugar not above No. 12 2 " " 

" " On raw sugar above No. 12 3 " " 

*' " On refined sugar 6 and 8 " " 

1 862-1 870. On raw sugar not above No. 12 3 " " 

" On " above No 12 and not above No. 15 3 >^ " " 

" On " above No. 15 4 

" On refined sugar 5 " " 

July, 1870. On raw sugar not above No. No. 7 i^ " " 

" On raw sugar above No. 7 and not above No. 10 2 " " 

" On raw sugar above No. 10 and not above No. 13 2)^ " -^ 

" On raw sugar above No. 13 and not above No. 15 23^ " " 

" On raw sugar above No. \^ and not above No. 20 3^4^ " " 

" Cn raw sugar above No. 20 4 " " 

" On refined sugars 4 " " 

In March. I875, the duties as above given (Act of 1870) 
were advanced 25 per cent. ; and the rates as then 
established constitute the tariff on sugars imported 



23 

into the United States wiiich is now in force. The exist- 
ing tariff on sugars is therefore a compound one — joint, 
specific and ad valoi-ein — and when reduced to equivalent 
specific rates, stands as follows: 

On sugars not above No. 7 D. S., i^c, plus 25 per cent 2.18c. 

On sugars above No. 7 and not above No. 10, 2c., plus 25 percent., . ..2.50c. 
On sugars above No. 10 and not above No. 1^, 2^c., plus 2^ " . 2.81c. 

On sugars above No. 13 and not above No. 16, 2^c., phtH2^ " . 3.43c. 

On sugars above No. 16 and not above No. 20, 3 ^i^c, plHfi2^ " ..4.06c. 

On sugars above No, 20, 4c., p^lus 25 per cent 5c. 

On refined sugars, 4c., plna 25 per cent 5c. 

In 1877 the duties collected on imported raw sugars 
varying in quality from No. 7 and less to No. 20 D, S. 
inclusive was $34,335,708.27. The duties received in the 
aggregate from the various grades imported were also 
as follows ; 

Duties Received. 

From sugars not above No. 7 D. S $16,580,087 51 

From sugars above No. 7 and not above Nd^ 10 15, 107,928 93 

From sugars above No. 10 and not above No. 13 2,488,003 2 1 

From sugars above No. 13 and not above No. 16 I55»93i 74 

From sugars above No. 16 and not above No. 20 3? 756 88 

It will thus be seen, that, as far as the revenue is con- 
cerned, over 92 per cent, of the sugar duties are collected 
from the importation of the lowest grades of sugar, 
classified according to the Dutch Standard as No. 7 and 
below, and as above No. 7, and not above No. 10. 

How DuTiKs ON Imported Sugars are Assessed and 

Collected. 

From the imposition of the first tariff on imported 
sugars in 1789-91, down to I846, the Government recog- 
nized for revenue purposes but tzvo grades of sugar, viz., 
'* raw " or '* clayed," and *' refined ; " and in the imper 
feet condition in which the art of sugar refining was 
during this period, the line of distinction between sugars 
as originally produced, and sugars subjected to purifica- 
cation, or refining by subsequent treatment, was un- 
doubtedly capable of definition without difificulty and 



24 

with approximative accuracy. But with an increase in 
the number of varieties and grades of sugars recognized 
in commerce and imported, and a progressive improve- 
ment in the process of refining, it was felt that a more 
exact proportioning of duties to values in the customs 
assessment of imported sugars, was eminently desirable ; 
and in the com.plete and radical revision of the tariff in 
1846, this result was believed to be best attainable by im- 
posing an exclusively ad valorem duty on the invoice 
value of all imported sugars. Such a system, then adopted, 
continued in force for about fifteen years ; the ad valorem 
having been 30 per cent, from 1846, to 1857; ^'^d 24 per 
cent, from 1857 to 1861. 

Dutch Standard. — The so-called *' Dutch Standard " 
was first introduced into the American tariff in 1861, 
through the provision, that thereafter sugars should be 
classified for the purposes fof the customs revenue, into 
those not above No. 12, Dutch standard of color, and 
refined sugars; the number 12 being assumed as repre- 
senting the dividing line between raw and refined sugars. 
This standard finds its origin and name in the circum- 
stance, that it was adopted many years ago by the Dutch 
merchants, primarily^ for the purpose of classifying the 
various sugar products of the Island of Java, a Dutch East 
Indian dependency^ It is founded on the assumption 
that color in sugars, is the co-efficient of purity or saccha- 
rine strength ; and starting with the very low^est grade of 
sugar that is found in commerce — one that by reason of 
the crudeness and imperfection of its manufacture, is almost 
black with impurity — and designating such sugar with a 
given numl)er as a unit for color — say from i to 4 — that 
each additional number represents a corresponding pro- 
gressive gain in color, and if in color, then also a corre- 
sponding gain in saccharine strength or purity. The 
standards as thus arranged by the Dutch, gradually came 
into extensive use throughout the world, for the classifi- 
cation and designation of the sugars of commerce, and 



^5 , 

in many countries also, became the basis for the assess- 
ment of customs revenue ; specified samples of sugar, cor- 
responding to the different numbers, and hermetically seal- 
ed in glass bottles, being annually prepared and distributed 
by the Dutch authorities. All sugars, according to the 
Dutch standard, which grade below No. 7 in color, are 
the typically crude sugars, simply purged from molasses, 
and really constitute the raw material for every further 
processes of manufacture. And every grade of sugar 
above No. 7, may be regarded as an advanced manufac- 
ture, every step forward in which reduces (brightens) the 
color and increases the cost, through the added expense 
of labor and capital. 

The number 13 on the Dutch scale is general^ 
accepted as indicating the line betw^een sugars which 
are the result of the original process of manufacture^ 
and sugars which have been refined, or subjected 
to a further and independent process of purification. 
Sugars below No. 10 are regarded as containing so 
great an amount of impurity as to render them unfit 
for direct consumption ; but the class of sugars above 
No. 10 and not above No. 13, contain varieties which 
may, and to a considerable extent do, enter at once into 
consumption. Sugars designated according to the Dutch 
standard as No. 20 or upwards in color, are destitute of 
color, or white, and are of the highest degrees of purity. 

Equity of the Dutch Standard.—\S[h\\Q undoubtedly 
most convenient for classification, the Dutch standard has 
little foundation in equity, inasmuch as color alone is 
not indicative of the value of a sugar. Thus, there are 
certain shades of color and brilliancy of grain which 
give value to sugars by making them attractive for direct 
consumption and the trade of grocers ; and yet these 
sugars, while paying the higher duties, may, and as will 
be hereafter shown, do contain far less of the saccharine 
principle than sugars which grade lower down in the 
scale of color, and so are subjected to a lower rate of duty. 



26 

It would also seem obvious that the duty being made de-^ 
pendent on the color — brown, yellow, gray, or white — 
and left to the decision of a custom-house official, some 
measure of doubt, error, and contradiction must neces- 
sarily occur, even with the best intentions, on the part of 
the appraiser. What is of one color in cloudy weather 
may be another in sunshine, and the simple process of 
drying alone may cause a difference of one or more num- • 
bers in grade in any given sample of sugar. There have 
undoubtedly been cases where the delay contingent on 
holding a cargo of sugars for re-examination and re- 
sampling has, from drainage and drying, subjected the 
importer to a very considerable additional amount of 
duty. 

By reason of these and other causes. Great Britain, which 
for a long period of years (or until 1874) derived a large part 
of her revenue from duties on imported sugars (as the 
United States does at present), never adopted the Dutch 
standard in her customs service, but discriminated in her 
tariff on sugars according to the following schedule : 

1st Class. — Candy; brown, or white refined sugar, or 
sugar rendered by any process equal in 
quality thereof. 

2d Class. — White clayed sugar, or sugar rendered by 
by any process equal in quality to white 
clayed, not being refined, or equal in quality 
to refined. 

3d Class.— Yellow Muscovado, and brown clayed sugar; 
or sugar rendered by any process equal in 
quality to yellow Muscovado, or brown 
clayed, and not equal to white clayed. 

4th Class. — Brown Muscovado, or any other sugar, not 
being equal in quality to yellow Musco- 
vado, or brown clayed sugar. 

5th Class. — Cane-juice (melado), 

6th Class. — Molasses. 



The classification of sugars on the basis of color, ex- 
clusively for revenue purposes, was atone time adopted by 
nearly all the great sugar importing countries — i.e.^ the 
United States, the Netherlands,Belgium,France,Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway, Color was also substantially the 
system in Great Britain so long as duties were levied in 
that country on imported sugars. But in almost all these 
countries, as it will be hereafter shown, the Dutch stand- 
ard has now either been abandoned, or the project for its 
abandonment is under serious discussion. On the other 
hand, the tariffs of Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Spain, 
and Portugal — all countries with small importations and 
small per capita consumption of sugar— recognize in gene- 
ral but two grades of sugar — raw and refined. 

Sugar Tariff of 1870. — As already shown, the Dutch 
standard first found a place in the sugar tariffof the United 
States in 1861 ; which established two classifications, viz. ; 
sugars not above No. 12, and refined sugars. 

In the tariff of 1862 the application of the Dutch stan- 
dard was made more extensive by establishing the follow- 
ing classifications of imported sugars, viz. : sugars below 
No. 12 ; above No. 12 and below No. 15 ; above No. 15, 
and refined sugars ; and this classification remained in 
force until 1870. It was then, however, clearly seen, that 
owing to the policy of the imposing but one and a high 
rate of duty on all sugars not above No. 12, the sugars ot 
lower grades and prices were so discriminated against, 
that none of them could be imported into the United 
States. All such sugars, therefore, found their market 
almost exclusively in England, to the great benefit, in the 
absence of the world's competition, of British refiners 
and British commerce, and to the great detriment of the 
commerce and industry of the United States; which^ buy- 
ing and transporting but little from the low grade sugar 
producing countries of the world ^ sold and transported to them 
ill return but few of the products of American industry. To 
meet these objections; w^s therefore mainly the object of 



28 

the reconstruction of the sugar tariff of 1870 ; and through 
the joint and almost unanimous co-operation of the 
importers and refiners with the fiscal committees of 
Congress, the classification was for the time the best that 
could probably be devised. 

The ciassifications recognized under this tariff (which 
is the existing one) are virtually si.v. In the first instance, 
and as a basis, comes " melada' or '' melado," a product 
distinct from sugar, and containing the entire concentra- 
tion of the cane juice, /. e., both sugar and- molasses. 

Following this as class i, we have all sugars not above 
No. 7, Dutch standard, (containing about 20 per cent, of 
impurities, and fit only for the production of '' vSoft" re- 
fined sugars). 

Class 2 includes all sugars above No. 7 and not 
above No. 10 D. S. (containing about 15 per cent, of im- 
purities), and fit and may be used for the manufacture ol 
either soft or hard refined sugars, but in practice mainly 
for the former. 

Class No. 3 includes all sugars above No. 10 aud 
not above No, 13 D. S., comprising grades from 
which the highest grades of soft and hard sugars are 
manufactured (and from which the lower grades of soft 
sugars cannot profitably be made). This cla^^s also con- 
tains grades which may go into immediate consumption. 

Classes 4 and 5 include sugars between Nos. 13 and 16, 
and between 16 and 20, all of which grades are suffi- 
ciently high in point of color for immediate consumption, 
but nevertheless are not free from impurities, and, not 
being uniform in quality, are undesirable to the great 
mass ot consumers. Class No. 6 D. S. includes all sugars 
designated as No. 20 and upwards, which are hard, white 
and free from impurity. 

As before stated, the object of this tariff revision of 1870 
was to grade the sugars imported into the United States 
in accordance with their commercial and industrial 
uses, and to allow the importation at low rates of the 
material fsr the manufacture of the popular soft refined 



29 

sugars, which comprise seventy per cent, of the aggregate 
quantity of refined sugars consumed in this country, and 
which cannot be profitably made from the higher grades 
of sugar. The rates estabhshed by this tariff were also 
regarded as highly fav^orable to the sugar-growing (pro- 
ducing) interests of the United States, inasmuch as they 
afford an average protection to the domestic producer 
equal to more than 60 per cent, of the average cost of all 
imported sugars. 

Influence of The Tariff of 1870, on American 
Commerce and Industry. 

The majority of those who discuss and enact tariffs 
often but little realize the potent agency they are invoking 
or wielding for the modification of commerce and the 
manufacturing industries ; and therefore the changes in 
the importation and domestic refining of sugar which 
followed, and in great part were occasioned by the 
tariff revision of 1870, are especially worthy of attention, 
and in their bearing on the present condition of affairs 
are most pertinent and instructive. 

^\\Q first result to be noted is, that the importation of raw 
sugars has increased under the tariff of 1870, or during 
the seven years from 1870 to 1877, to the extent of 37 
per cent, as willapp'ear from the following statistics; — 

Total imports of raw sugar in 1870. . . . 1,160,460,114 lbs. 
" '• *' " 1877 1,584,162,924 "■ 



Increase 423,702,810 lbs. 

Second. This very great increase in the imports of sugar 
was derived from all sugar producing countries, with 
the exception oj the Spanish Islands of Cuba and Porto Rico ; 
or in other words the United States, while largely 
increasing its sugar imports since 1870, imported but little 
more from Cuba and Porto Rico in 1877 than it did in 
1870. Thus, in 1870 out of a total of 1,160,460,114 lbs. of 
sugar imported into this country, Cuba and Porto RigQ 



30 

supplied 932,339,525 lbs ; whereas, in 1877, out of a total 
importation of 1,584.162,924 lbs, Cuba and Porto Rico 
furnished but 988,897,728 lbs ; — an increase in seven years 
of 5^)558,000 lbs. or only a little more than 6 per cent. 

The explanation of so remarkable diversion of com- 
merce, as before intimated, was due to the fact, that 
previous to 1870, all sugars not above No. 12 D. S., were 
subjected to one uniform rate of duty of three cents per 
pound ; the effect of which was to impose so dispropor- 
tionate and excessive duties on sugars of low prices and 
of low g^^rades, as to nearly preclude their importation ; 
the duty of 3c. per lb., for example, being 100 per cent. 
ad valorem, on a sugar costing three cents at the port of 
exportation ; and only 50 per cent, on sugars costing 6 
cents, under like circumstances. But when in 1870 the 
classification of imported sugars for the assessment of 
duties was changed, and the grading commencing at No, 
7. Dutch Standard, with a duty of if cents per pound, 
was followed by a rate of two cents per pound for all 
grades above No. 7, and not above No. 10, and so on ; 
then the tariff discriminations against the importation of 
low price and low grade sugars — the product of countries 
other than Cuba and Porto Rico — was removed ; and 
such sugars accordingly at once began to come to the 
United States in large quantities, in place of being sent 
almost exclusively, as before, to England for a market or 
refining purposes. In fact there are few commercial 
phenomena more interesting and instructive than the 
exhibit of the following table, showing the increase in 
detail in the importations of sugars into the United States, 
from countries other than Cuba and Porto Rico, during 
the two years next succeeding the adoption of the existing 
tariff classification of sugars. 



31 



Table showing the Importations of Sugar into the 
United States, from the Principal Sugar Pro- 
ducing Countries — other than Cuba and Porto 
Rico — for the years 1870 and 1872, respec- 
tively. 



Countries. 



British West Indies 62,780,677 lbs 



1870. 



1872. 



Spanish Possessions other than Cuba and 
Porto-Rico 



Dutch East Indies. 
Brazil 



China, including Hong Kong and Singa- 
pore 



Dutch West Indies. 
Danish West Indies. 
French West Indies. 



59,367,828 
15,278,522 
24,145,331 

2,251,782 

4,606,474 

4,768,568 

10,168,107 



Other Countries, except Cuba and Porto-; 

Rico I 44,753,300 



Total I 228, 120,589 



110,132,229 lbs. 

87,339.414 " 

56,479,697 " 

28,378,952 <* 

8,630,852 " 

6,809,150 " 

8,281,146 " 

48,177,714 " 

58,920,395 " 

4i3»i49,549 " 



It is also to be noted that the change in the character 
of the sugars imported into the United States, inaugur- 
ated by the tariff Act of 1870, is still in progress; the 
countries exclusive of Cuba and Porto Rico, which ex- 
ported to the United States, 228,120,000 lbs. in 1870, and 
423,149,000 lbs. in 1872, having increased their exports to 
595,262,000 lbs. ill 1877. 

The following table also exhibits statistically the slight 
increase since 1870, in the imports of sugars from Cuba 
and Porto Rico. 



Cuba and Porto-Rico. 



1870. 



932,839,525 lbs. 



1877. 



988,897,728 lbs. 



Increase of importations (mainly high grade sugars), six 
per cent, in seven years. 



3^ 

Present Condition of the Business of Sugar Im- 
porting AND of Sugar Refining in the United 
States— THE Attendant Difficulties and Em- 
barrassments. 

With this review of the sugar industry of the United 
States — in its several departments of importation, refin- 
ing, domestic production and consumption, together with 
the relation of all these several interests to the tariff — 
the way is now open for an intelligent consideration of 
the present situation of this great business ; and more 
particularly of the difficulties and embarrassments which 
are now attendant upon the importation and refining of 
sugars, .and the possibility of remedying the same through 
the agency of legislation. 

The origin of all these difficulties and embarrassments 
is referable to the tariff, or more precisely to the methods 
which the Government has instituted and employ for 
the collection of the large revenues which it is consider- 
ed expedient to derive from the importation of sugars. 
Difficulties and embarrassments will always be contin- 
gent on all attempts to impose and collect high, complex 
and varying rates of duty on any articles of merchandise 
imported iji large quantities^ from various foreign coun- 
tries, and differing widely and continuously — as is especi- 
ally the case with sugar — in respect to prices, qualities 
and physical, or external characteristics. For when the 
determination of quantities and varying values in large 
amounts, is. intrusted to men whose compensation is com- 
paratively small, and whose tenure of official position and 
employment is dependant on qualities other than honesty 
and ability, human avarice is apt to be very strong in 
suggesting, and human nature correspondingly weak in 
resisting temptation ; and some degree of consequent 
fraud and wrong in the collection of the revenues, is 
almost inevitable. Such has been the universal fiscal 
experience of all countries and in all ages. 

To appreciate, however, more fully the sphere, within 
which in the case of imported sugars, the practice of fraud, 



evasion or the occurrence of unintentional errors in the 
assessment of duties is possible, it is necessary to first 
clearly understand the methods of proceedure on the part 
of the Custom House officials. 

The questions presented to them for determination are 
two, quantities and values. 

Weighing. — The determination of the first involves 
simply weighing, in the effecting of which, as honesty 
and ordinary attention constitute the full qualifications of 
the weighers, there need be no errors. Yet in the weigh- 
ing of so large a quantity as fifteen hundred millions of 
pounds annually, opportunities for error undoubtedly 
occur. The methods of weighing are, however, so 
mechanical and so open to inspection, that intentional 
frauds in the department, on any large scale, are exceed- 
ingly improbable, and all recent experience is to the 
effect, that where errors have occurred, the advantage 
has been to the Government rather than to the merchant 
or importer. Thus, in the testinnony given before the 
Sub-Committee of Ways and Means of the House of 
Representatives, New York, September, 1878, it was 
stated by Mr. Humphries (of E. D. Morgan & Co.) that 
on an importation by his firm during the first eigh:^ 
months of 1878 of about 21,000,000 pounds of sugar, 
the Customs officials collected duties on 43,237 pounds 
more than could be accounted for on the sale of this same 
aggregate import, and that the experience of the firm for 
the previous year was nearly to the same effect. 

It is also to be noted in this connection, that merchants 
dealing in sugar and other imported articles do not 
take the Government weights in their commercial trans- 
actions — buying and seUing — but feel obliged to have 
their own weighers, outside of the Government weighers ; 
the feeling being all but universal among merchants that 
Government weights are not reliable. Such a condition 
of things entails a tax on the business of the country 
which in the outset is far from inconsiderable, amounting 



34 

in the case of one firm in NewYorkfor the firsteight months 
of the present year (1878) to some $6,000 or $7,000 ;'^ and in 
these days of sharp international competition for trade 
and commerce, when fractions of a cent per yard, pound, 
or bushel determine the movements of immense quati- 
ties of merchandise, the indirect injury of such a tax, 
through the blight that it may occasion, is far greater than 
the burden of the original taking. Such a condition of 
things, furthermore, is utterly disgraceful to the Govern- 
ment, and for its continuance there is really no excuse ; 
while the whole matter, so long as it continues, consti- 
tutes a point of evidence in favor of Civil Service reform 
that is more weighty and convincing than volumes of 
abstract reasoning. 

Questioned on the subject of the practicability of 
reform in this matter of Custom House administration, 
Mr. Solon Humphries, of the firm of E. D. Morgan & 
Co., gave testimony before a committee of the Ways and 
Means Committee, September, 1878, as follows : 

"■ I will say, that I believe that it" (such a reform) *' can 
be brought about. T believe it is practicable, but then the 
whole system of weighing by the Government would 
have to be changed somewhat ; that is, there would have 
to be a special department, perhaps with one head, some- 
body that we could look to and hold responsible for the 
weights. One man could be set apart from the Custom 
House who would attend especially to all the weighing 
of sugar. I haven't an}^ doubt that the matter can be so 
perfected, and the weighing so done as to bring about 
that state of things that we should do away in the weigh- 
ing of sugar in large degree with the City weighers. I 
would state right here, that something of that kind was 
found necessary when the tariff of- 1861 or 1862 was 
enacted by which the duty on tea was imposed. You 
will recollect there was a duty of 15 cents a pound put 
upon tea, and the practical working of that led to some 
of the same difficulties that I have seen charged in the 
papers ; that is, the Custom House weights among im- 
porters were not uniform. For, as you can imagine, 15 

* See, testimony of Solon Humphries, Ways and Means Committee, New 
Tork, September, 1878, 



35 

cents a pound made a grc:~Lt temptation to give liberal 
weights if they could be had. It was a growing evil, 
and I remember I was one with other gentlemen to come 
to the Custom House and see if we could have it reme- 
died, so that we could have a uniform system of Custom 
House weights of tea. Well, I remember at that time 
jNIr. James, our present efficient Postmaster, was in the 
Custom House, and I believe had charge of some por- 
tion of the weighing. The result of that was, that the 
weighing of tea was placed speciall}^ I believe, under 
Mr. James' charge, and the result was that some two or 
three of the prominent houses commenced selling tea by 
Custom House weights, avoiding the expense of the City 
weigher. What was the effect of it? The effect was, 
that all the importers were watching the Custom House 
weights. Of course, if they were to sell by those 
weights, they were pretty sure to see that the thing was 
done right. I believe it was done right, and that system 
prevailed, so far as it was concerned, I think, until the 
duty on tea w^as done away with. Now, I hope that 
just such a S3'stem may be brought about in sugar, and I 
believe it can. I will state right here that it is the duty, 
I believe, of every one to save all the expense that he 
can. I believe that it is a part of a merchant's business 
to try and have things done with the greatest economy. 
In connection with our own house, it would have saved 
us this )'ear probably $6,000 or $7,000 if we could have 
sold our goods by Custom House weight, and we should 
have been happy to have done so, if we found that we 
could rely upon it." 

It ought, however, to be borne in mind that whatever 
of errors or difficulties are involved in this whole subject 
of weighing, the province of remedy is not to be found in 
any additional legislation, but solely and exclusively in 
improved Custom-House administration. 

Sampling. — The determination, or verifications of the 
values of imported sugars, under any system of appraise- 
ment, depends primarily on the sampling, or ascertaining 
the quality of the contents of the hogsheads or other pack- 
ages in which the sugars are enclosed. The method of 
** sampling" at present followed in the New York Cus- 
tom-House was thus described by Mr. S. B. Dutcher, 



36 

Chief Appraiser of Sugars in New York, to the Sub- 
Committee of the Ways and Means, in September, 1878: 

'' When the invoice reaches our office, what is termed 
a sample ticket is made out with the marks and numbers, — 
number of hogsheads of each mark — and those are sent to 
the samplers on the district where the cargo is, or taken 
there by one of the examiners who supervises the samp- 
ling. They are required to sample at least one hogshead 
in ten hogsheads, and more, if necessary to satisfy them. 
The samples are then returned to the office by a Govern- 
ment messenger, and there they are examined and classi- 
fied for duty. We have two examiners at the examining 
tables every day, and the other examiners are supervising 
the samples. We keep a record of who samples each 
cargo of sugar, so that if any errors are found we will 
know exactly to whom to trace it, and where the responsi- 
bility belongs, and then the invoices are returned to the 
Custom-House," 

The main opportunity for fraud or error in the samp- 
ling of sugars for Custom-House appraisment is found in 
the circumstance, that while color is made the tariff cri- 
terion of value, the color in any given package of moist 
sugar is not uniform. In the case of Muscovado sugars, 
which comprise the great bulk of the sugars of commerce, 
the sugar, as it is manufactured, is thrown into hogs- 
heads, with perforations in their bottoms, through which 
the syrup adherent to the grains or crystals of sugar 
gradually drains. This drainage is, however, never com- 
plete, and when the hogsheads are thrown down upon 
their sides, and the drainage perforations plugged up, 
preparatory to shipment, there always remains a stratum 
of sugar at one end of the hogshead four or five inches in 
thickness, more or less permeated with syrup, and corres- 
pondingly reduced in color. This portion of the hogshead 
is termed in the trade — the ^^ foots.'' The sugar at the top 
of the hogshead, being drained nearly free from all syrup, 
is the lightest in color, while in the centre of the hogs- 
head there often occurs a stratum of sugar, the color of 
which is intermediate between the sugar at the bottom 
and the sugar at the top. Centrifugal sugars, and sugars 



37 

imported in mats or bags, are said to have no ''foots!' 
but nevertheless, the color of siuh sugars may vary 
considerably in different parts of one and the same 
package. 

" I will state as a fact that there are rarely any cargoes 
of wet sugars or bag sugars that come to this port that do 
not contain at least two colors, and in many instances 
more than two. There is rarely a cargo of Pernambuco 
sugar that comes to this port, but that when the broker 
and sampler of the refiner is sent on board the vessel to 
sample those sugars, he is instructed to takeoff the sugars 
that are on the upper part of the cargo and go down into 
the heart of the cargo, in order that a fair sample may be 
got. 1 will state that there is never a cargo of Manilla 
sugar that does not have at least two colors. The very 
fact that a cargo ot Manilla sugar is put in a ship and sent 
through warm and cold countries makes it sweat, and 
part of the sugars are poorer than the rest, and there is 
just as much room for fraud in the importation of Manilla 
sugars as in the Cuba hogsheads with their foots." — 
Testimony of IV. A. Bjot/i, before Committee of Ways and 
Means, September, 1878. 

It is, therefore, obvious that if the component portions 
of every cargo or package of sugars are assessed in exact 
correspondence with their colors, there ma}^ be three, 
and possibly four, assessments on every cargo and every 
package of sugar, even though the whole amount pre- 
sented for entry was the result of essentially one opera- 
tion of manufacture. But as this would involve an 
absurdity in respect to execution, the difficulty is got 
over by drawing samples from different portions of each 
package selected for examination, and by mixing the 
same, determine an average of color and duty, and 
theoretically also, of value. The officials entrusted 
with sampling are, therefore, instructed to take as many 
samples from each package, by boring into it, as will 
represent the average of its contents. 

"■It requires a good deal of judgment on the part of the 
sampler, and whoever is supervising the sampler, to get at the 
fxact proportions of the dry and wet sugars in a hogshead 



38 

where there is a foot— there must be very good judgment ex- 
ercised and it requires considerable experience to be a good 
sampler in that respect. If the foot is a deep one, zvhy, of 
course, a larger proportion of sample drawn from that part 
of the hogshead should be placed zvith the other portions to 
make tip the general sample. If the foot is very small, the 
proportion should be very much less, of course. There consid^ 
erable judgment has to be exercised. 

'* Q. How many parts of a hogshead does one of your sam- 
plers drazu sugar from ? 

''''A, Sometimes they will bore six or seven times in the hogs- 
head before they can satisfy themselves on that point, and 
sometimes only three or four times in that class of sugars. 
They draw from the dry parts and, of course, from the wet 
parts of .the hogshead, to see what the depth of that foot is, 
and they have to bore two or three times before they can ascer- . 
tain satisfactorily its depth."" — Testimony of S. B. Butcher, 
Chief Sugar Appraiser for New York, Committee of Ways 
and Means, September, 1878. 

In theory, and generally in practice, in the New York 
Custom House, two men are detailed for the sampling of 
every invoice of imported sugars : a sampler, who draws 
the samples, and an examiner who supervises the draw- 
ing. But as there are '' not examiners sufficient to be 
present all the time while the samplers are sampling a 
cargo," the work, in part, is necessarily entrusted to but 
one official. '' For instance, while we have, say fifteen 
samplers, we cannot have more than four examiners out 
on duty at one time, and these examiners have the whole 
Brooklyn river front, from Greenpoint to Red Hook, tQ 
supervise, and also the river front here. There is not a 
great deal landed in New York or Jersey City, but we 
have all that territory to look over. While a supervising 
officer may go and be present and supervise apart of the 
sampling of a cargo, he cannot stay there all the time." — = 
( Testimony of S. B. Butcher, Chief Appraiser of Sugars, New 
York Custom House ; Ways and Means Committee, Sep- 
tember^ 1878, It is claimed, however, that the examiners 



39 

can and do see sufficient of each cargo examined to enable 
them '' to judge pretty generally of the correctness of the 
work of the samplers," and that no extensive h-auds in 
this department are committed, as is olten popularly sup- 
posed and asserted." 

* " I am very decidedly of the opinion that no extensive frauds can be charged 
to the Appraiser's Department. I believe that sugar is very generally correctly 
sampled and pro[)erly classified. There are cargoes of sugar that it is difficult to 
sample with absolute correctness without sampling every hogshead ; and ihere 
will be sometimes errors to a certain extent, but that there are any large errors 
or great frauds I do not believe. The record that we keep — the changes that are 
made — we change our samplers every two weeks, revolve them around from dis- 
trict to district ; and frequently if the examiner who is supervising the sampling 
has not time, perhaps, to stay to see all the sampling of a cargo— but who 
sees a portion of it done, and who does a portion of it himself, he forms an 
opinion, and a general judgment regarding the character of that cargo, when 
the sampler comes in, and he examines the samples for classification. If it does 
not come out accoi'ding to his judgment, or the classification is not as high as 
he had naturally thought it would be, why he will order a resampling perhaps, 
and go and supervise the sampling again. 

Q. " Have you exercised any supervision over those parties who have access 
to sugars? 

A, " Yes, sir ; I have been on the docks, and seen the sugar sampled ; I have 
been in the examining room and seen it classified ; I have made a great many 
inquiries, and looked into the matter from a great many different standpoints. 

Q. "Then, when you state that you do not believe that any large frauds 
have been committed as alleged, you state that from your own personal knowl- 
edge? 

A. "Yes, sir ; I state it as my deliberate judgment. 

Q. " And not upon the representations of your subordinates ? 

A. "No, sir. 

Q. " It has been stated — and it probal)ly arises from a jealousy of this city — 
but it has been stated in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston that the New York 
importers of sugar have an undue advantage, and that we have got in here a 
grade of sugars at a lower rate of duty than should be had under the tariff ; 
what is your opinion on that subject ? 

A. "My opinion is that that is not the case." — Testimony of Appraiser 
Dutcher, Ibid. 

Question by Mr. Wood : "Well, we desire, in the midst of these conflicts of 
opinions and newspaper statements and allegations of large losses to the revenue, 
get the opinions and experiencess of gentlemen, like yourself, largely interested 
in the trade. lu the first place, I would like you to state, if you please, what 
your opinion is as to whether the alleged frauds of under valuations or under 
sampling exist as has been stated in the press ?" 

Answer by Mr. Solon Iliinipliries {of the firm of E. D. Af organ er" Co.) : 
" My impressions are that the allegations are very much magnified, indeed. I 



A6 

But be this as it may, the whole structure of sugat" 
appraisement lor customs revenue purposes, rests on 
sampling as a basis ; and if the two men to whom such 
special trust is confided are disposed to collude, and 
samples are drawn and in such a way— from the ''foots,' — 

have been pretty familiar with these allegations that have been made for the 
last three years, and from the best investigations that I have been enabled to 
give to them, first for the purpose of protecting my own business, and next from 
my duty as a citizen to protect the revenue, to see that all the revenue is col- 
lected that is possible, and I must say that I believe that they have been 
immensely magnified. And the best evidence, in ray mind, has been a statement 
very recently made by the Appraiser of this port. And right hei^e I want to state 
that I believe that there has been a very great improvement going on in the 
collection of the revenue from sugar in this port, at least for the last three years. 
I think this cry about fraud has had the effect to stimulate the efforts of the Ap- 
praisers ; not only the present Appraiser, but the one before, and the one before 
that," — Ways mtd Means Conwiittec, Sept., 1878. 

Question by Mr. Wood: "We would like to know your own opinion as 
to the present administration of the law with reference to collecting the duty upon 
sugar, and whether in your judgment frauds have existed to the extent alleged, 
and, any improvement that you may be able to suggest?" 

Answer by Mr. Lawrence Turnure {of the firm of Moses Taylor &^ Co., 
of Nerv York, and a member of the Jay Custom House Commission of i^T"]) '• 
" I think at present that the duty is very well collected, as well collected no 
sugar as it is upon any other article, and as near as it can be collected. In fact, 
anything, the merchants do not get perhaps what they are entitled to. I think 
the whole systeiij of doing business is in better shape than it ever was before. I 
think the past year the entire revenue almost as far as lean judge has been col- 
lected. Of course there will be fraudulent practices, that cannot be avoided in 
any large business, in the collection of the revenue at the port of New York ; 
but they are very limited in my opinion ; very limited. 

Question by Mr. Wood: "Has there been any charges of frauds committed 
in Philadelphia where you have a house ? 

Answer by Osgood Welsh, of Philadelphia, of the firm of S. ^r' W. Welsh, 
importers and commission merchants : " I have never heard of any charges of 
frauds. 

Q, " Have you any reason to believe that they have been committed here to 
the extent stated ? 

A. "No, sir. 

Q. " What is your opinion on that subject ? 

A. " That there may have been frauds, of course )■- i?ossibie. I have no 
knowledge of any fraud having been committed, and I cannot believe — common 
sense tells me that it is not possible for frauds to be committed to the extent that 
some of the gentlemen here try to make us believe. 

Q. " Don't you think it possible to commit frauds where the sampling is to 



41 

as to represent the sugar to be of a grade lower than is 
actually the case, the opportunity for fraud is certainly 
very great; and as the gain accruing to the importer from 
the under valuation of a whole cargo will be also very 
considerable, it is evident that the temptation to fraudu- 
lently sample can be made as great as the opportunity 
existing for doing it. 

It is difficult, however, to see, in this matter of sam- 
pling, any more than in the matter of weighing, how any 
further purely tariff legislation can provide any additional 
safe guards against fraud than what already exist. Set- 
ting aside entirely the question of protection to the 
domestic producer, so long as the necessities of the 
government require imported sugars to be taxed for the 
purpose of revenue, so long such taxes will be com- 
paratively high ; and whatever may be the plan adopted 
for appraisement and assessment, the operation of weigh- 
ing and sampling will continue necessary. 

The province of legislation, under such circumstances, 
in the way of making the servants of the government 
honest, cannot therefore, embrace much more than im- 
proving the methods by which such officials are selected 
and making more secure the existing tenure ot office. 

Relation of Recent Improvements in the Manufac- 
ture OF Sugars to the Existing Tariff and to the 
Color Classification of Sugars. 

The tariff on sugars of 1870, as before stated, was 
undoubtedly the best that could be enacted at that time ; 
and if there were no other objections to it at the present 

determine the amount to be paid ; don't you think it quite possible to erroneously 
sample a lot of sugar ? 

A. " Quite possible. 

Q. " Don't you think the temptation is very great ? 

A, " In a weak man, of course, it is. Temptation for wrong-doing is great 
in all the walks of life. I don't see why it is any greater in determining the 
rate of duty upon sugar than upon any thing else. If you have a weak man, a 
bad man, in the employ of the Government to sample sugars, and you have got a 
weak and bad merchant, you can have any amount of wrong you want." 



42 

time — setting aside the questions ot free trade or protec- 
tion — than those growing out of the existing methods of< 
weighing and sampling, there would be no necessity for 
any radical changes in the classifications and rates which 
the existing tariff prescribes on sugars. But within a 
comparatively recent period, very great improvements 
have been effected in the manufacture of raw sugars,— 
especially by the introduction of the centrifugal machines 
and' processes, and the use of the vacuum pan on the 
plantations for the concentration of the cane-juice. And 
the result of these improvements has been to undermine, 
as it were, the present tariff" on such sugars, and entirely 
frustrate its original design, by rendering color the basis 
and the existing tariff" classification, and the basis of the 
Dutch Standard system, no longer reliable as a test for 
the saccharine strength or value ot centrifugal sugars, — at 
least for sugars below No. 13 — as it once was approxi- 
mately, when the entire sugar product of the world com- 
prised only ''muscovados'' or ''clayed'' sugars. 

To understand clearly how this is, it is only necessary 
to state, that under the new process — centrifugal machines 
and vacuum pans — a sugar can be made, in which there is 
very little impurity as compared v.-ith w^hat always exists 
in " old process " sugars, while the color in the former 
(new process) will be no higher (lighter) than in the latter 
(or old process). Or to illustrate further, sugars grading 
according to the Dutch standard, as No. 9 to ro can be, 
and are constantly made by the new process in Cuba and 
Demerara, which, when tested chemically, or by the 
polariscope, will be found to contain from 96 to 98 degrees 
of saccharine strength (100 being the maximum), or within 
from two to four points of absolutely pure sugar ; while the 
same (color) number of old process sugar — Muscovado- 
made in Manilla, Brazil, China, and other countries, would 
test 80, or even 70, or some twenty to thirty points lower 
in saccharine strength as compared with the former. 
The difference in the market prices of such sugars is, 



43 

therefore, very considerable, as the real value of all sugars 
depends on their saccharine strength ; and yet owing 
to the mere circumstance that their colors correspond, 
they would pa}^ under the existing tariff on importation, 
precisely the same duty ; or, in other words, the tariff at 
present on a centrifugal sugar, costing in Cuba 5 cents 
per pound, and a Brazil sugar, costing 3 cents per pound, 
would be the same, provided the color of the two sugars, 
as is often the case, were in correspondence. The result 
is, that the tariff now offers an actual bounty for the pro- 
duction of sugars in Cuba and Demerara and discrimi- 
nates to an equal extent against the interests of the sugar 
producers of other covuitries, and is thus made the agency 
for the working of a^monstrous injustice. The detriment 
which such a state of things brings to the great rehning 
ipdustr}^ of the country and to the public (customs) 
revenues is alike very great. Notice of the former will 
be taken in detail hereafter ; but in respect to the latter, 
attention is here asked to the following most significant 
and unimpeachable testimony given by Mr. Solon Hum- 
phrey, one of the oldest and most experienced sugar 
merchants of New York, before the Sub-Committee of 
Ways and Means, September, 1878 : 

*' I have made," he said, '* a careful calculation of the 
vaccuum pan centrifugal sugars that were imported into 
the United States for the year ending, I think, the ist of 
June, of this year, and, according to my estimate, if those 
sugars had paid their relative rate of duties in com- 
parison with (he old process sugars which comprise the 
great mass of the sugars of the world, the Government 
would have received $1,400,000 more revenue. Now it 
may be asked who got that $1,400,000. Did the import- 
ers get it? 1 am an importer of those sugars, and I can 
speak upon that point, and I certainly got n6ne of it. 
Did the refiners get it? Certainly not, for the reason 
that the refiners buy all their sugars here upon their 
saccharine strength, as indicated by the polariscope. 



44 

Now, who does get this ? The importers do not. Why? 
Because the importer goes to Cuba or elsewhere where 
it is produced, and he is governed entirely by the price 
the refiners will pay, and he makes his calculation and he 
pays precisely the relative difference in the place of pro- 
duction that it brings here. Therefore the planters — the 
manufacturers of centrifugal sugars — are the ones, of 
course, that get this $1,400,000. There is no other con- 
clusion, and they will continue to get it until our tariff is 
corrected and this difficulty is eliminated from it." 

Investigations instituted by the United States Treasury 
Department. — The attention of the United States Treas- 
ury Department, having been called to the embarras- 
ments attendent upon the collection of duties under the 
Dutch standard of color prescribed by existing lawr, 
the Secretary of the Treasury caused a test to be made 
of all the sugars imported into the port of Philadelphia, 
for the month of March, 1878, with a view of determin- 
ing the difference in the value of such importations ac- 
cording to the color test (Dutch standard), and the test 
of the polarscope ; which, last in the hands of experts, is 
admitted to be entirely trustworthy. The following 
were the reported results : 

Of sugars grading not above No. 7, Dutch standard, 
loi samples were tested. The average test in saccha- 
rine strength was 87.48 ; but the range of variation was 
from 80-8 1 to 98-99 : 

2 samples were from 80 to 81 

2 " " 81 '' 82 

3 " " ....82 '* 83 

.7 " " 83 " 84 

8 '' '' 84 •' 85 

5 '' '- 85 " 86 

^,13 " '' ....86 *' 87 

20 " " 87 '' 88 

13 '' " 88 •' 89 

10 " " 89 " 90 



45 



8 samples were from 90 to 9I 



91 


" 92 


92 


' 93 


94 


' 95 


96 


' 97 


97 


' 98 


98 


' 99 



Of sugars above No. 7 and not above No. 10 D. S., 71 
samples were tested. The average test in saccharine 
strength was 90.24. The extremes of variation were 82 
and 99. The specific tests were as follows : 



I from 
I 
I 
2 



80 


to 


83 


85 




86 


86 




87 


87 




88 


88 




89 


89 




90 


90 




91 


91 




92 


92 




93 


93 




94 


94 




95 


97 




98 


98 




99 



II 

25 
14 

7 
2 

2 

I 

I 

3 

Again, a series of sample bottles containing Dutch 
standards, from No. 7 to 16, inclusive, were analyzed for 
the Treasury, under the supervision of the late Prof 
Henry, of the Smithsonian Institution, with the follow- 
ing results : the samples, it being premised, " increasing 
in lightness of color, from a dark broAvn to a greyish 
white, the difference in shade between two consecutive 
samples being very slight, and scarcely perceptible to an 
unpracticed eye. Starting with the lowest number, the 
amount of crystalizable sugar found in No. 7, was 88 per 
cent.; while No. 9 of the series, two grades higher, con- 
tained only 87 per cent. No. 12 of the series, contained 
92 per cent.; No. 13, but 90 per cent., and No. 14, 90.8 



46 

per cent. ; that is No. 14 of a typical series of Dutch 
standards of sugar (furnished to the Treasury by the 
Dutch authorities for testing colors and values), contained 
less crystalline sugar, and was correspondingly less valu- 
able than No. 12, two grades lower in the scale. 

Sugars artificially colored. — The way being made clear 
for the undervaluation of certain classes of imported 
sugars, or for the evasion of the spirit of the tariff by 
strictly complying with its letter, suspicions have been 
aroused and charges freely made that foreign sugars of 
high grades and values have been colored artifically by 
the producers, and imported into the United States, at 
rates of duty altogether disproportionate to their true 
market value or saccharine strength. 

Whether these suspicions and assertions have any real 
foundation in fact, is an open question. The best sugar 
merchants and experts in New York unite in saying that 
they have never seen an importation of raw sugar artifi- 
cially or intentionally colored ;* and yet there can be no 
doubt that the thing is not only possible, but easy of accom- 
plishment ; and it is doubtful, considering the circumstances 
under which such artificial coloration is probably effected, 
whether the revenue laws of the United States, as they 
exist, can legitimately prevent it or punish for fraud the par- 
ties concerned in the importation of such sugars. Thus, the 
statute of the United States (Act of December 22, 1870) 
establishing the duties on imported sugars affirms that 
sugars, on importation, shall be assessed for duties in 
proportio7i to their color, and omits to specify or recog- 
nize any relation between duties and saccharine strength. 
It the coloring material, furthermore, was something in 
the nature of a foreign substance added independently to 
the sugars for the purpose of effecting an evasion of 

* Against one of the Samples of sugar tested for the Treasury Department, 
this memorandum appears : " Apparently artificially mixed with coloring 
matter ;" and this sample, graded as No. 7 D S., ^contained more crystalline 
sugar than another sample in the series graded as No. 9. 



47 

duties, the general statute against frauds might also 
apply ; but such is not the case, for any desired degree of 
coloration in sugars can be produced by management in 
the boiling or evaporation of the cane juice or by vary- 
ing the degree of centrifugal drainage. To attempt, 
therefore, to stop the arbitrar}^ coloring of sugar by law 
would in effect require an amendment of the statute, pro 
viding the exact manner in which sugars shall be manu- 
factured and purged or drained of their adhering mo- 
lasses.* 

Another interesting fact — long known to a few, but not 
to the public — is, that sugars produced on different plan- 
tations m the same sections of the island of Cuba, and 
possessing exactW the same saccharine strength, differ 
very considerably in color ; probably by reason of differ- 
ences in the composition of the soils upon whicli the canes 

* In fact, tlie case as it stands offers an almost parallel to the former 
Indicrous experience of the Government and the merchants in the matter 
of the so-called "Leaden Images;" when, under one of the old time, 
carelessly constructed tariff's, a heavy dntj was imposed on imported lead, 
while -'works of art in metal," "musket balls," "clock weights," "sound- 
ing leads," and "old lead" were at the same time included within the free 
list. Of course the wicked merchants, assuming that Congress which pass- 
ed the laws, and the executive that sanctioned them, knew what they were 
about, adhered to the letter, without troubling themselves concerning the 
spirit of the statute ; and ceasing io import lead, did forthwith import 
clock weights, musket balls, sounding leads, old lead, and Moses and the 
prophets and Washington and the i:)oets fashioned in lead, in large quan- 
tities ; and the Government, on the other hand, tried to prevent it, and 
repeatedly seized such importations (as they recently have cargoes of high 
grade sugars of dark color), and instituted prosecutions. But in every 
instance the Government was defeated before the courts, and Daniel 
AVebster, who was retained for the defence in one instance (i. e., when 
David Leavitt was prosecuted), scouted_the very idea that the Government 
had any just cause for its proceedings, or that the merchants had done any- 
thing which the statute had not clearly permitted them to do. And if any 
case in which the Government has seized sugars under the existing law, 
because the statute color test was not in accord w th the saccharine value, 
should ever come to trial, there could not be a doubt, if equity and prece- 
dent wero recognized, that the proceedings of the importer would not be 
declared illegal. And every opponent of careless, slip-shod legislation 
ought not to desire it to be otherwise, for governments, as well as individu- 
als, ought to be held answerable in law for their own negligence. 



48 

are grown. And such exceptionally colored sugars have 
undoubtedly for years been passed through the United 
States Customs at less rates of duty than other Cuba 
sugars of lighter color but of no greater value, to the 
very considerable profit of those wVio were cognizant of 
these natural differences. 

The consequence of the state of things as described is, 
that ever3^body throughout the world interested in the 
buying or selling of sugar, or in making sugars a basis 
for the assessment of taxes — importers, merchants, 
refiners, bankers making advances, Finance Ministers and 
Custom House officials — have all within the last few 
years been coming to the conclusion that sugars, 
especially sugars below No. 13, which comprise the bulk 
of all raw sugars, can no longer be accurately classified 
in respect to value by their colors. Of course, this 
means also that the Dutch standard must be abandoned ; 
aud practically it has been abandoned everywhere, except 
in the Custom Houses ot the United States. Great 
Britain, having abolished all tariffs on imported sugars, 
has no interest in the question from a government point 
of view ; but there has not been a cargo of sugar under 
No. 13 bought or sold for 37ears by a British or Amer- 
ican merchant, refiner or grocer solely by the color test 
or Dutch standard. In France sugars are bought and 
sold and assessed for revenue mainly in accordance with 
the test of the polariscope, and even by the Dutch, the 
originators of the Dutch standard, the color test is also 
practically abandoned. 

The time has therefore fully come when, in the inter- 
ests of the national revenue and of the commerce and 
domestic industry of the country, the existing United 
States tariff on sugars has got to be essentially aban- 
doned, and a new system devised and enacted ; aud 
every year's delay in providing such legislation, will eost ihe 
tho eouutry, through diminished revenues, uot less than 
$2,000,000 af dollars per annum ; or it is to be noted 
that, as under the existing tariff the manufacture of 



49 

new process (centrifugal) sugars of low color and high 
saccharine strength for importation into the United 
States is rendered exceptionally profitable, the produc- 
tion of such class of sugars is rapidly increasing in Cuba, 
Demerara and elsewhere ; in Cuba alone, during the year 
1877, to the estimated extent of 75,cco hogsheads. 

" From 1870 to 1875, ^ don't think a single complaint 
was made to the Government in regard to sugar or to 
their classifications. But in 1874 or 1875 another grade 
of sugar commenced to com.e to this country, called the 
Demarara colored sugars. These sugars contain an im- 
mence amount of saccharine matter, but were lowered 
in color to accommodate them to the wording of the 
tariff. At that time it was only Demarara; now it is 
Cuba. The percentage of centrifugals was increased last 
year, seventy-five thousand hogsheads in Cuba over the 
year previous, and every year it will increase, because 
they have got the money to invest in vacuum pans and 
refining. " Testimony of T. A. Havcmeyer ^firvi of Havc- 
meyers & Elder of Neiv VorJz) before Sub-Conimittce Ways 
and Means, September, 1 878. 

*' Some (planters) have gone to the enormous expense,! 
understand — half a million to a million o dollars perhaps — 
to get this expensive machinery. And for what? To make 
two or three thousand hogsheads on a plantation of cen- 
trifugal sugar. Now as 1 look at it, our tariff has been 
the principal cause of the building up of that industry 
in Cuba." Testimony of Solon Humplirey, Ways and 
Means Committee Investigation. 

And -the real question of importance in this whole 
sugar inquiry, and the one to which all discussion of 
other matters leads up to f\s, iv hat shall be the nature of 
these prospective tariff ehanges. 

To this department of this inquiry, attention will there- 
fore next be asked ; but preliminary to so doing, it is 
expedient to a full understanding of this whole subject, 
to take a brief notice of one or two other matters. 

Charges against Refiners. 

In these days when the railroad, the steamship and the 
telegraph have broken down the old barriers of space 



50 

and time which formerly separated nations most widely, 
and have made the whole world commercially, asitv/ere, 
but one, it is absolutely necessary for every merchant or 
manufacturer engaged in large operations, if he would 
succeed against the world's sharp competition, to study, 
with a view to reduction of cost, the smallest details of 
his business, and to economize in every particular. With 
this view, certain of the large refiners in New York and 
elsewhere, who annually use sugar in their operations to 
the extent of hundreds of millions of pounds in order to 
avoid the profits necessarily incurred by buying second- 
hand from foreign producers, have become importers 
themselves, as well as refiners ; and to further avoid ex- 
penses of dockage and lighterage, as well as the waste 
which necessarily accrues in the way of leakage and 
shrinkage, estimated at two per cent, of its cost, when 
sugars are allowed to remain on wharves and in yards for 
any length of time have been in the practice of having 
imported sugar landed aud sampled under Government 
auspices at their own wharfs, and have used these same 
sugars in their processes of manufacture, as soon as per- 
mission was given them to do so by the Custon House 
authorities. Out of these customs and practices, which 
are in every way laudible and right, serious imputations 
or charges of fraud have been preferred, w^hich have found 
countenance among importers, who have suffered shrink- 
age in the amount of their business or commissions ; and 
among refiners, who from lack of capital, inclination or 
facilities, have not entered upon the practice of similar 
economies. 

It is not however, pertinent to this inquiry, to enter into 
detail into the discussion of these matters, but it is most 
pertinent to point out, that even supposing fraud to the 
fullest extent suspected has occured, it has no connection 
whatever with the proposed tariff revision, and does not 
call for any legislation. And this last for the reason, that 
the remedy, as in the case of alleged frauds in sampling 
an d^ weighing, is purely a matter of administration; 



5i 

and every law niecessary for efficient administration, on the 
part of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Custom 
House officials already stands on the Statute Books. 

Adulteration of Refilled Sugars. — As much has recently 
been said in the public prints, and by witnesses called 
before Government commissions ot inquiry respecting 
the adulteration of refined sugars, it is also well to here 
call attention to the result of an examination into this 
subject recently published (1877) by a well known 
chemist, — Prof. C. F. Chandler of Columbia College — in 
an article on sugar contributed by him to Johnson's 
Cyclopedia, pages 641--2. "The adulteration of refined 
sugar and syrup " he says, " has often been 
alleged." The idea is very prevalent that marble 
dust is added to powdered sugar, and that 
poisonous metals are used in the refineries, 
and left in the sugar. There is no foundation ivhat ever for 
this belief. The writer has examined a great number and 
variety of sugars sold at retail in New York, and has 
never found an adulterated or unwholesome specimen 
A similar idea is entertained with regard to syrup. The 
only foundation for this is the fact (i) that one or tw^o 
establishments prepare a syrup by combining sugar- 
house molasses with glucose syrup, prepared from Indian 
corn, which is entirely harmless, and (2) some refiners 
have used minute quantities of a tin salt and free acid to 
improve the color of syrup, but the quantities employed 
were too small to give any cause for alarm'''" (3.) The 

* Question hy Mr. Wood, Chairman Ways and Means Committee: "You 
have spoken about adulteration, and about the great number of frauds per- 
petrated by refiners in the character of the sugars sold ? " 

Ansicer hy LoMson K Fuller, of the firm of Aldama & Fuller, Neio York : 
"Yes." 

Q. "Do I understand you to intimate that adulteration of their sugars 
by refiners with adulterous substances is gsneral ? 

A. "Not all the refiners do it— a majoritj'^ of them 

Q, "Have the grocers or the consumers no mode of detecting this 
adulteration ? 

A. "No, sir; it can be detected only by the most scientific chemists." 



^2 

fact that cofTee and yellow sugars and the syrup often 
produce an inky color with tea has been supposed by 
many to indicate adulteration. But this is due to the 
presence of a very small quantity of iron, which is dis- 
solved by the sugar solutions from the tanks and tubes of 

Testimony of William C. Boofh, of the firm of Booth & Edgar of New York: 
"And as we get along you will see that fraud on the revenue is the father, 
the adulteration of refined sugar is the mother, and the polariscope in 
the Eevenue Department is the child ; there you have got it, sir." 

The Chairman: "Give us the whole family." 

Mr. Booth: "Thank God there has never been but one child, and we 
propose to introduce a new race and put new blood in it ; now, sir, the 
adulteration of refined sugar, the mother — the mother— would you like to 
sea her? I don't know as I had better bring her out to-day ; here is apiece 
of it (prolu3ing a sample in a piese of paper); I picked it up this morn- 
ing ; I looked in this dictionary; what is sugar? sugar is a sweet, and is a 
well-known sweet crystaline substance manufactured chiefly from sugar, 
cane; would you like to see the mother (hands the sample in the jDaper 
to the chairman) ? that is only a little piece of the body ; taste of it ; I 
won't guarantee it (the chairman tastes the sample) ; sugar is a well-known 
sweet crystaline substance made from sugar-cane ; I told you that frauds 
on the revenue was the father; he had two wi/es ; would you like to see 
another one of them ?" 

The Chairman : ' ' Yes, sir . " 

Mr. Booth (producing a vial and holding it up) : "Tin, tin, tin; would 
you like to see another one ? (producing and holding up a smaller vial) ; 
tin ; adulteration of sugars concerns the Committee of Ways and Means ; 
it concerns the Board of Health ; it concerns everybody ; suppose that by- 
and-by the people of this country have had tin' enough to become tin-lined, 
so that the bowels are tin, the stomach is tin ; what a blessing it would be 
to us fathers of families ; our children would not cry any more ; there is 
no more stomach ; it is tin ; no more colic ; then, where goes yellow fever 
and cholara? he can't do it; if his intestines are all tin-lined he can't have 
the yellow fever ; this is a question that touches deep, you see ; now, in 
regard to this matter of adulteration somebody here said : 'It is all bosh '; 
I am on oath, sir : this sample (^holding up the first vial) came from a 
gallon of syrup made by a refiner in this city. It was sent to Dr. Chandler, 
the President of the Beard of Health ; it was analyzed and returned to me . " 

Testimony of Theodore Havemeyer, of the firm of Havemeyer 6b Elder: 
"Now, as regards adulteration, and the quality of sugar produced by the 
refiners: I- refine a large quantity of sugar, and I assert to-day that not 
one ounce of any adulterating matter or glucose enters my iactory or is 
put in my su2,ars ; that is a fact. The gentleman talks of glucose ; glucose 
is just as good as whiskey ) both are made from corn; why shouldn't one 
eat glucose ? It is an immense product in the West, and it is getting to be 



53 

the factory or refinery, and is entirely unobjectionable, 
perhaps useful." 

It has been asserted that the increased importation and 
domestic production of glucose is due to the extensive 
use of this article b}^ the sugar reffners for the adultera- 
tion of their products. Careful investigation has, how- 
ever, demonstrated, that such an assertion has no founda- 
tion in fact ; and that the increased production and use of 
glucose is due to its increase in the manufacture of beer, 
" malt extracts," and for the sweetening of chewing to- 
bacco, in the place of liquorice, and for various other 
analogous objects. 

Statements of Mr. Hewett. — Finally, the discussion of this 
matter of alleged frauds in the recent importation and 
entry of sugars would be incomplete that failed to notice 
the statement recently submitted to the Ways and Means 
Sub-committee, by Mr. Robert Hewett, Jr., of the firm of 
Ceballos & Co., of New York. 

According to the evidence given by this gentleman, 
the recent frauds in the importation of sugars have been 
so enormous, that the losses sustained by the Treasury 
in the port of New York alone, during the three fiscal 
years from 1876 to 1878 inclusive, have been as follows : 

1876 $4,984,989 

1877 5,367,444. 

1878 4,578,553 

This startling estimate is based on the hypothesis that 
the importations of sugars into New York average in 
quality above No. 10 Dutch standard; and that this being 
so, the annual revenue collections in New York during 

one of the principal productions of the Uni ed States. He makes a com- 
parison between adulterated milk and refined sugars ; there is no com- 
parison between the substances used to adulterate milk and glucose ; glu- 
C0S3 is a pure article, manufactured and used by the people of the United 
States, and which is entirely harmless, while the substances used to 
adult3rat3 milk are deleterious in character. I would say that as far as the 
house of Haremayer & Elder is concerned, no adulteration is practiced 
in their refinery, and no adulteration is used by them in any sugars they 
sell." 
Investigation of Ways and 3feans- Sub-CommUtee, New York, September, 1878. 



54 

the above named years from foreign sugars, ought to 
have been greater than it actually was, by the above 
named differences. The authority relied on by Mr. 
Hewitt to sustain his views were (as he claimed) the 
estimates made on this point — i. e., average quality of im- 
ported sugars — by the Commission on the New York 
Custom House, in 1877, known as the " Jay Commis- 
sion." 

Statements so serious in their character as these of Mr. 
Hewett have demanded and received a careful investiga- 
tion, which has resulted in the following conclusions : 

First, — The Jay Committee could not have accurately 
estimated the average grade of sugar imported mto 
New York in an}^ one or a series of years, inasmuch as 
vSuch an estimate would have required a careful sampling 
of all the cargoes brought into port during the whole 
time specified, which they did not do. 

Second. — No opinion was expressed by the Jay Com- 
mission on the matter in question, as appears from the 
following testimony before the Committee of Ways 
and Means, September i8th, 1878, by Mr. Turnure, the 
member of the commission to whom the preparation of 
so much of its report as related to sugar was specially 
committed : 

Q. (By Mr. Wood). I am requested to ask you what 
you consider would be the average bv the coJor standard 
of sugar now imported ? 

A. (Mr. Turnure). 1 can hardly answer that question, 
because it has been decreasing every year. It is less this 
year than it was last ; there are more poor sugars used 
this year. 

O. Would it be under No. 10 ? 

A. Decidedly so ; 3^es. 

Q. And not below 7 ? 

A. I think not below 7. 

Q. One of the gentlemen who appeared here yester- 
day presented a table, and as the Jay Commission is re- 



'55 

ferred to in it, I would like to read what is stated so as 
to ask your own recollection upon this subject. He 
says: ''New York importaticns grade above No. lo 
Dutch standard, as per estimates of the Ccm mission en 
the New York Custom House, known as the Jay Com- 
mission ? " 

A. '' I have no recollection of making an}' such state- 
ment. I would like to have it pointed out to me where 
I made any such statement." 

Here then is a flat contradiction of Mr. Hewett's as- 
sertions. But if this is not sufficient to demonstrate 
upon what an unsubstantial basis the current charges of 
extensive frauds in the recent importation of sugar are 
based, a more emphatic disapproval will be found in an 
examination of the statistical returns of such importa- 
tions. 

Thus, as already pointed out, the classification of 
sugars adopted for revenue purposes under the tariff of 
1870, produced a great change in the quality of sugars 
imported into the United States. For example, under the 
old tariff, the total imports of raw sugar in 1870, were 
1,160,460,114 lbs.; and of this quantity, the Spanish 
islands — Cuba and Porto Rico alone, supplied 932,389, 
525 lbs., or over 80 per cent. ; leaving but 20 per cent, of 
the whole annual import to be supplied by all other 
countries, producing mainly lower grades of sugar. On 
the other hand, if we turn to the statistical returns for 
the year 1877, it will be found that the total sugar im- 
ports for that year amounted to 1,584,162,924 lbs.; of 
which Cuba and Porto Rico supplied 988,897,728 lbs., or 
about 62 per cent. ; while the imports of lower grades of 
sugar from other countries into the United States had 
increased from 20 to 38 per cent. The records of impor- 
tations, therefore, considered independently, exhibit an 
increase in the imports of the inferior grades of sugar in 
1875-76, and 1877 as compared with 1870, and conse- 
quently account for a comparative decrease' in the pro- 



56 

portion which the aggregate duties on sugars sustain to 
the aggregate imports. 

It is also to be noted, that during the past two years, 
the sugars of the Sandwich Islands, which before paid 
duty, have been admitted into the United States under 
the Hawaiian reciprocity treaty ; and that under such 
stimulus, the product and import of such sugars has 
notably increased; circumstances which alone would 
make the ratio between the quantity of the sugars im- 
ported and the duties collected altogether disproportion- 
ate to what formerly existed. 

The hypothesis of enormous frauds in the importation of 
sugars into the port of New York, therefore — fortunately 
for the good name of the City, and of the country of 
which New York is the great commercial metroplis — does 
not rest on any substantial basis. 

What shall be the Future Taript on Imported 
Sugars ; and by what methods shall the duties 
on the same be assessed and collected? 

As already stated, nearly all interests represented in 
the sugar trade — the importers, the refiners and the 
representatives of the Treasury and Custom House, are 
agreed, that some changes in the existing tariff on sugars 
are most expedient. If all were agreed as to what in 
detail these changes should be, the task of tariff revision 
would not be difficult; for the American Congress is 
quick to respond to any strong popular demand for legis- 
lation. Unfortunately, no such agreement among the 
parties interested exists. The importers are not agreed 
among themselves ; the refiners are widely antagonistic 
in their views; the Secretary of the Treasury has pre- 
sented one plan for revision and assessment of duties, and 
the Committee of Ways and Means of the House of 
Representatives another. With Congress, however, rests 
the ultimate decision, But with a view of helping to 
render such decision the best that can be arrived at, it is 
proposed to next consider the various specific proposi- 



57 . 

tions looking to a change of the present method of assess- 
mg and collecting the duties on sugars, which have been 
brought forward by the various parties in interest, or are 
likely to be submitted to Congress for consideration. 

Starting with the premise that a duty on imported 
sugars under our existing national fiscal system is 
absolutely necessary, the determination of the rates to be 
imposed, like all other questions of ' fiscal economy in 
their national application, should be governed by the 
broadest considerations. And in tr3'ing to ascertain 
what are these considerations, special effort ought to be 
made to try and avoid what has heretofore been to so 
great an extent the curse of our previous tariff legislation, 
viz : the undue regard of special or class interests. What 
in this respect is for the best interest of the people of the 
whole country is the real question at issue ; and not what 
is likely to work for the special benefit of either the 
domestic producing interests the importers, the refiners 
or the grocer. It will not do ^furthermore to assiune hi the 
outset as an axiom that a duty the most simple in its assess- 
ment and collection is necessarily the best ; for such a dutv 
might prove the most injurious to the country that could 
possibly be devised and enacted. To prove all things and 
hold fast only to that which is good is as sound a rule for 
guidence in finance and political economy as in ethics 
and theology. 

The Present Duties on Imported Sugars Excessive. — The 
duties now levied on raw sugars imported into the 
United States are among the very highest under our 
existing high tariff — higher even than are imposed on 
silks, champagnes, laces, and a great variety of pure 
luxury, and ranging from' 35 to 83 per cent., with a 
general average (quantities being taken into considera- 
tion) of about 62 pej cent. Such duties are excessive ; 
more than double the average on all imported merchan- 
dise ; and any proposition to either directly or indirectly 
further increase them, and so further augment the price 
of an essential article of family consumption, ought to be 



58 

regarded as too monstrous for serious consideration. 
The arguments advanced in favor of the continuance of 
such high rates are the necessities of the Government for 
revenues ($34,000,000 to $40,000,000 per annum from 
this source ; the facihty with which the duties on sugars 
are collected (their bulk preventing any direct smug- 
ghng), and the necessity of protecting and fostering 
the domestic cane sugar interests. An abatement of 
the sugar duties to the extent of at least one-third 
could, however, be effected without detriment to the 
revenue by reim posing the former duties on the impor- 
tation of tea and coffee ; aud without detriment either, 
as all experience proves, to tlie consumers of these latter 
commodities;''^ and with labor as cheap, and supplies of 
every kind cheaper than in the decade from 1850 to i860, 
the domestic sugar interest ought to enjoy as high a 
degree of prosperity, with a protection ot 40 to 48 per 
cent., as it undoubtedly did during the period referred to. 
when the duty imposed on foreign sugars rnaged from 
24 to 30 per cent. As a reduction of duties on sugars 
would also, by reducing their cost, undoubtedly consider- 
ably increase their consumption (the increase in the cen- 
sumption in Great Britain consequent upon the repeal of 
duties being something extraordinary see page 13), it is 
almost certain, that any loss of revenue Avhich the Trea. 
sury might experience would be in no degree propor- 
tionate with abatement ot the sugar duties, 

Ad valorem duties on sugar .—K\\ economists are agreed 
that an ad valorem tariff, is in theory the most equitable 
that can be construed, and the reason for such a conclu- 
sion is most obvious. 

The worth and quality of every (imported) commoditv 
is measured by its market price (purchasing power ex- 

* The production of tea and coffee being restricted to certain countries, 
and therefore partaking in a large degree of the nature of monopolies, the 
prices of these commodities in the open market can be and are controlled 
in a manner far different from what is possible in the case of merchandise 
for the supply of which there is a large competition. 



59 

pressed in money), or its exchangeable value. And such 
being- the case, it follows that if a tariff tax is imposed 
exclusively upon the value of an imported commodity 
each consumer pays in exact proportion to what he him- 
self decides to be his ability to purchase and consume. 
Thus, for example, coffee from Mocha is esteemed a greater 
luxury, and costs more, th^n coffee from Rio (Brazil). 
Suppose, however, a duty/were imposed of 5 cents per 
pound upon all coffee. #^hen, in such case, the " Mocha" 
coffee, costing 20 cents per pound and used almost exclu- 
sively by the rich, would pay 25 per c^vX. ad valorem, 
while the " Rio" coffee, costing 12 cents per pound, and 
used mainly by the poor, would pay a Custom House 
charge of 44-66 per cent, ad valorem. On the other hand, 
if a duty were assessed upon all imported coffee of 30 per 
cent, ad valorem, the pound of " Mocha" coffee would pa}' 
an equivalent of 6 cents per pound, and the pound of 
'' Rio" one of 3.6o-Tooth cents. This ])rinciple will hold 
good in respect to every variety of merchandise made 
subject to tariff or other forms of taxation. 

Unfortunatelv, there is a radical unwillingness and 
aversion ow the part of our legislators and statesmen tc 
assess duties according to the just standard of appraise- 
ment or valuation ; which circumstance implies one of 
two things. First, either that Government is unable to 
procure able experts, ca])able at all times of determining 
the value of staple articles ot foreign {production — an 
achievement which no hrst class, successful merchant in 
any specialty has an}' serious difficulty in accomplishing ; 
or second, that government officials, as a rule, are so un- 
trustworthy or incompetent as to necessarily entail upon 
any ad valorem system of Customs great undervaluations 
and consequent revenue losses. Take whichever horn of 
the dilemma we may, the conclusion will not be one in 
any degree flattering to national pride ; but such are the 
facts, and it is necessary to deal with them as we find 
them. 

At the same time it cannot be denied that ad valorem 



6o . . 

duties on sugars (with all the assumed objections to 
them) are certain to be assessed and collected 
more equitably and completely than duties which are 
assessed (as at present) according to the now obsolete 
and impracticable color test ; for, with the exception 
perhaps of cotton and grain, there is hardly an article of 
merchandise entering largely into international exchanges 
concerning which commercial information is more accu- 
rate and accessible than this same article of sugar. Price- 
currents, showing stocks on hand, crop prospects, current 
demand and current prices for all the standard grades 
are frequently prepared for the trade, and implicitly relied 
on by the trade ; and if anything additional for the pur- 
pose of verifying invoice values were needed, the great 
sugar-producing countries of the world are now readily 
accessible by telegraph.^ Yet, notwithstanding all this, 
as there is little probability of the acceptance by Con- 
gress or the merchants of the ad valorem principle in 
arranging a tariff on sugars, the necessity of devising 
some secure and equitable specific system of duties be- 
comes therefore all the more imperative. With a view 
of meeting this necessity, various plans, as before stated, 
have of late been brought forw^ard and advocated with 
more or less of earnestness by the several parties in inter- 
est ; and of these the following are the most important : 

The Two Grade Specific System 

A return to the system incorporated into the tariff of 
1 86 1, in which but two grades of sugar were recognized, 
— ''raw'' and ''refined — with specific rates for each, has 



* it is not to be concealed, that the adoption of an ad valorem system of 
duties for sugar would not of itself free the determination of the value of 
sugars from all existing difftculties, even if the appraisers were in all 
respects capable and honest. The weighing of every package., and the 
resort to some test to determine relative saccharine strength, would be as 
necessary then as now, in order to verify the quantities and values stated 
•in an invoice ; so that under both ad valorem and specific systems, a resort 
to specific evidence in the appraisement of sugars would be almost 
equally a matter of necessity. 



6i 

been proposed ; but is generally regarded as imprac- 
ticable, from the difficulty of determining what con- 
stitutes " refiued sugars All sugar is to some extent 
refined. The first boiling of the cane juice is a refining 
process," and by the new methods of manufacture, the 
first product of the cane juice is carried by substantially 
one operation to a degree of purity Avhich formerly 
could only be obtained by subsequent separate and 
multiple manipulations. " Who shall decide just how far 
the original process of manufacture shall be carried to give 
to the product the characteristics of a 'raw ' or of a ' re- 
fined ' sugar. Again, " the former experience of the Govern- 
ment under this system, i. e. tariff of 1861 — was exceed- 
ingly unsatisfactory. No two collectors or appraisers 
agreed, and sugar which paid three-quarters of a cent 
per pound duty in one port, paid two cents in another." 

The One Rate of Duty on Sugars. 

Another proposition which has found many sti'ong 
advocates, and is certain to be forcibly urged upon Con- 
gress for adoption, on the ground of its simplicity and 
effectiveness, is the enactment of a single uniform rate 0/ 
duty upon all sugars of zvhatsoever kind or quality ; or what 
is substantially the same thing, tJie adoption of tzvo rates, 
one covering all sugars grading ip to the color standard 
known as No. 16, and a second rate including all sugars above 
No. 16. 

In order now to comprehend clearly and fulUy the scope 
and bearing of the latter proposition upon the commerce, 
industry and revenues of the country— for any enactment 
affecting the machinery by which nearly one-sixth part of 
the total revenue of the nation is collected comes very 
close to all these interests — it is proposed to subject it 
to analysis on the basis of the three following questions : 

I. What interests ivill tJie so-called " one rate of duty' be 
likely to specially benefit f 



62 



2. What interests will it be likely or certain to ifijure f 

3. Will the Natidnal rreasury or the consumer be benefited 
by lis adoption ? 

First, — What Interests will the so-called one ratk 
OF DUTY ON Raw vSugars be likely to specially 

BENEFIT : . 

There can be no doubt that the Spanish islands of 
Cuba and Porto-Rico will be the main recipients of 
benefit from the enactment of the one rate of duty on 
sugars — so much so, that if full permission were given to 
the sugar producers of these islands to designate in what 
manner our existing tariff on sugars should be modified 
to suit their interests, and at the same time not appear to 
Openly discriminate against other producers, they would 
unquestionably select the proposed one-rate system and 
no other. The one-rate system will also benefit the sugar 
producers of Louisiana to a great degree, at the ex- 
pense of the domestic consumers of sugar. 

Thus, the statistical returns of the Treasury show that 
in 1877 we imported a total of 1,584,162,924 lbs. of sugar, 
costing $81,187,504; and of this aggregate Cuba and 
Porto Rico furnished 988,897,728 lbs., invoiced at $55,- 
884,894, which gives an average of 5.65 cents value per 
pound. 

All the rest of the world furnished us with 595,265,196 
lbs., invoiced at $25,302,610, which gives an average of 
4.25 cents per pound. 

Let us assume now that a uniform rate of duty, say of 
3 cents per pound, had been levied during the year upon 
all of these sugars. The result would have been that 
the sugars from Cuba and Porto Rico would have been 
admitted at our ports under an equivalent ad valorem rate 
of about 53TVir P^^ cent., while the raw" sugars shipped to 
up from all other countries would have been charged with 
an ad valorem equivalent of about 71 per cent. Eighteen 
per cent, advantag^e — the difference between 53 and 71 in 



«3 

rates — is equivalent to $10,053,880 ; and this sum. there- 
fore, is the approximate correct measure of the bountv 
which the one-rate system would offer to the Spanish 
sugar producers and manufacturers. 

The following table also shows how a uniform duty of 
say 2.^ cents per pound, irrespective of quahty, would dis- 
criminate in favor of the higher or refined grades ot 
sugar : 

Hai'- — Cosf in produc'tiK/ 

roiDilri/. Uniform diifies Ad mhrem. 

Melndo '4 cents per pound. 2,] eentfs per pound. 83^ per c«ni 

No. 7 :l5li " -2.] " 71A 

No. 10 4- " 2v^ -^ 62i 

No. 13 4.50 '^ 2h ■' 55^ 

liefinnl — Lv^i In pivdinbiii 

eountry . Uidform dtdiei:. Ad ixdor^m. 

No. 13 to l(i. . 5.50 cents jjer pound. 2^ cents per pound. 45?, per cent. 
No. 16 to 20.. (1.50 " 2^ " 38^ 

Above No. 20. 8 " n '' 31i •■ 

The higJicr grades of imported raw sugar, luider a uni- 
form duty of 2\ cents per pound for all sugars, would, 
therefore, be taxed under the tariff about 28 per cent, less 
than the loivcst grades of imported raw sugars. 

Siu'elv, then, this enactment of a imilorm duty on all ra\\- 
sugars, would seem to be legislating directl}^ and unmis- 
takably in favor of a particular foreign country, and that 
coimtry 'one which, while always selling the United States 
the largest proportion of its annual industrial product, 
intentionally buys comparatively little in return ; the 
im])ortsfrom Cuba and Porto Rico into the United States 
for the fiscal year 1877 having been $72,177,000, while 
our total (domestic and foreign) exports to same islands 
for the same period were but $19,104,000; which levies 
the highest tariff duties on our exports, emplo3^s slave 
labor and discriminates in its statutes in favor of European 
manufactures, and against the corresponding products 
of the United States. In fact, to such an extent do the 
existmg Spanish laws and shipping regulations interfere 



64 ' . . ■ 

with and actually prevent anything like reciprocal trade 
between their West Indian possessions and the United 
States, that if it was desired to send a cargo of miscel- 
laneous American manufactures to Cuba, the cheapest 
way of doing it would be to first export the merchandise 
to old Spain, land it, and pay a duty on the same, and 
then reload and reship it by a Spanish vessel to its ultimate 
destination. It is no wonder, therefore, that amongst 
the warmest and most strenuous advocates of a one-rate 
system of duties on sugars, the representatives of the Spanish 
authorities and of the Cuban planters should be found 
most conspicuous. 

If it were a question of free sugar entirely, no advan- 
tage could, as might casually appear, be claimed by 
the Cuban planters ; for in such case, the higher class 
and price sugars would have to stand a fair and doubt- 
less sharp competition with the lower priced sugars of 
other countries ; and then trade would adjust itself with- 
out interference, and involve simply a fair and equitable 
question of qualities and values. But when, on the other 
hand, it is proposed to allow the high priced sugars of 
Cuba, constituting about 60 per cent, of the aggregate 
import of the United States, to come in at an equivalent 
ad valorem duty of 53 per cent., and levy an average 
duty of 71 per cent, on so much of the sugar as the rest 
of the world may desire to send us, the result, intentional 
or otherwise, will simply be to create, through the tariff, 
an odious and utterly indefensible monopoly in favor of 
Spanish interests, which, for reasons above stated, are not 
entitled to any favor. 

It may, however, be claimed that the quantity of all 
foreign sugars can be made to suit the price and demand ; 
and that if China, Brazil, the Phillipine Islands, or the 
West Indies other than Cuba, would procure the expen- 
sive machinery — vacuum pans and centrifugal machines — 
necessary for the manufacture of high grade sugars 
which the Cubans have, they could produce as good a 
sugar as can be manufactured in Cuba. No doubt they 



65 

could ; but, under ordinary circumstances, there is little 
probability they would ; and in the absence of a tariff on the 
part of the United States discriminating in favor of new 
process sugars, any uncertainty on this point would be 
resolved into a certainty. The low grade sugar produc- 
ing countries are, in general, poor countries ; and vacuum 
pans and centrifugal machinery are exceedingly expen- 
sive, and require an investment of a large amount of 
previously accumulated capital.''^ Again, all the evidence 
derived from a long and varied experience in all parts of 
the world, as will be hereafter shown, is, furthermore, to 
the effect, that sugar derived from either the cane or the 
beet-root, cannot be profitably refined, or even semi-re- 
fined, at the point of original production ; and it is all but 
certain, that w^ere the bounty which the existing tariff of 
the United States now offers to the production of centri- 
fugal sugars withdrawn, the manufacture of such sugars 
in the West Indies would be very limited or entirely dis- 
continued. 

A one rate duty on all raw sugars, or one rate on all sugars 
up to No. 1 6, Dutch standard, would, of course, be a benefit 
to the domestic (American) sugar producers, to the extent 
of the duty imposed ; no one, however strong may be his 
predisposition for entire free trade, can reasonably object 
to the American sugar planter obtaining the full benefit 
of any duty equitably imposed on imported sugars for 
revenue purposes, l^ut to advocate a rate of duty for the 
benefit of any class, either at home or abroad, which prac- 
tically so discriminates against every species of low priced 
sugars as to make them disproportionately dear to con- 
sumers as compared w^ith high grade sugars, is altogether 
another matter; and against any such system, the objec- 
tion is both strong and legitimate. 



* Some (planters) have gone to the expense of millions of dollars, I under- 
stand, haF a million to a million of dollars perhaps, to get this extensive machin- 
pry_ Testimony of Solon Humphrey, Way^ and Means CoDimitlee, 



66 

Second. — What Interests will the One or a Uni- 
form Rate of Duty on Imported Raw Sugars be 
likely, or certain, to injure? 

If a uniform rate of duty — say 2j or 3 cents per povmd 
— on all sugai's, or on all raw sugars up to No. 16 D. S., be 
enacted, there can hardly be a doubt that the sugars of 
Brazil, Manilla, the British and Dutch East Indies and 
other countries producing only the lower grades will in 
a great degree, or entirely, cease to be imported into the 
United States ; inasmuch as it has been dem.onstrated 
that any uniform rate productive of revenue would giA^e 
to the Cuba planters such advantages as would enable 
them to defy competition. 

The first injury which such a policy would inflict, would 
fall upon our already weak and struggling shipping 
industry. To abundantly satisfy even those most inclined 
to doubt this assertion it is necessary to first recall to mind 
the circumstance that, under the tariff in force from 1862 
to 1870, there was one uniform rate of duty of 3 cents on 
all imported sugars not above No. 12, Dutch standard. 
The effect of this, as already shown (p. 30) was to greatly 
restrict the importation of low grade and low price sugars 
into the United States ; and it was for the express pur- 
pose of obviating this evil, and in accordance with the all 
but unanimous demand of the American sugar importing 
and refining interests, that the revision of the tarift on 
sugar was made in 1870, by which sugars grading lower 
in color, and consequently in price and quality, than No. 
12, were admitted at ver)^ considerably lower rates of duty 
than previously, namely : ij cents per pound for sugars 
not above No. 7 : 2 cents for sugars above No. 7 and not 
above No. 10, and 2\ cents for sugars above No. 10 and 
not above No. 13 D. S. 

The influence of this tarifl" revision of the sugar duties 
in 1870 on American commerce and shipping is strikingly 
illustrated by the following table, which shows the Amer- 
ican tonnage employed in movements between the United 



6/ 



States and four of the principal low grade sugar pro- 
ducing countries in 1870 and 1877, respectively ; as well 
as the imports of sugar for each of these years from 
these same countries into the United States— an exhibit 
never before presented to the pubHc : 



Countries. 



Import of sugar) 1 , . ,,^„„ I 

in 1870. : American I^iports m 1877, American 

RateofdntY, 3 shipping T''^^®^^ *^.^ "^^- shipping 

cts. on all not emploved 1 1^"^"^^ °^ ^^^^ employed 

above No. 13 in 1870. \ Z^^^^^ «YPf in 1877. 

J) <;i I was permitted . 



French West In- 
dies 

Dutch West In-j 
dies and Gui- 
ana 4,606,474 " 11,970 " 7,786,758 

Dutch East In- 
dies 

British West In-, 

dies and Gui- i 

ana ' 62,780,677 " 71,622 - 127,140,36.^) " 107,244 



10.168.107 lbs.; 3.738 tons. 48.210.896 lbs. 15,171 tons. 



18,704 



15,278.522 " 5,944 " 39,676,415 '• 14,284 



Aggregate , . 



92,833,780 lbs. 93,274 tons. 222,«14,434 lbs. 155,41)3 tons. 



RECAPITULATIOX. 

1870. Imports, 92,833,780 lbs. 

'* American tonnage emploved, 93,274 tons. 

1877. Imports, 222,814, 434 lbs. 

'' American tonnage employed, 155,403 tons. 

There is no disguising the eftect of these statistics. 
They speak to the purpose and demonstrate that Amer- 
ican shipping interests would be injured by the enact- 
ment of a one rate of duty on imported raw sugars, or by a 



68 

rate that would discriminate against the importation of 
low grade sugars ; and by offering a bounty, compel, as it 
were, an increase of the import of high grade sugars, the 
products of countries whose commercial practice toward 
the United States it long has been, and still is, to sell much 
and bu}' little. Better b}^ far, if any discrimination is 
deemed expedient, to reverse the proposition, and impose 
higher duties on the high grade, new process sugars of 
Cuba and Porto Rico, and low duties on the low grade 
sugars of China and the East and West Indies, and so 
compel the former countries to at least put the United 
States on an equal commercial footing with all other 
countries. 

The next injury which a uniform duty on all imported 
sugars would inflict would be on the sugar refining indus- 
try of the country. And at the outset, on entering into 
a discussion of this department of our subject, it should 
be clearly premised that it is as much of a wrong and a 
grievance to enact a tariff that WTjuld especially benefit 
the refiners at the expense of the consumers, as it would 
be to establish a rate of duty in favor of Cuba or any 
other sugar producing country. Any tariff proposed, 
which intentionally, or otherwise, would give the sugar 
refiners any undue advantage, should be unhesitatingly de- 
feated. But, on the other hand, the American sugar 
refiner, as well as the American cotton, woolen, silk, 
leather, iron, steel, or any other manufacturer, may justly 
ask that no tariff rates shall be established which actually 
discriminate against him, and, while favoring the foreign 
producers, in no way benefit the domestic consumer. 

The American Sugar Refining Industry. — The American 
sugar refiners, the magnitude and comparative rank of 
whose industr}^ has been already noticed (see page 8), 
claim, and their claim is generally admitted, that they 
can make refined sugar cheaper than it can at present 
be produced in Europe, or any other country. And 
it is a fact little known to the American public— ^. e., 
the sugar consumers — that if the duties now levied on im- 



09 

ported sugars were deducted, the American refiners do 
now actually sell their product on an average some eleven 
cents per \oo pounds cheaper than do the refiners of Eng- 
land, which country now permits the importation of all 
sugars free of duty. On this point the Ways and Means 
Committee, in their recent investigations, elicited, the fol- 
lowing curious and important testimony : 

Questio7i by Mi\ Wood : " Do you think we could make 
refined sugar in this country as cheap as anywhere else ? 

Aftszver by Solon Humphrey, Esq. : '^ \ believe we could 
make it cheaper ; from investigations I have made, I be- 
lieve sugar can be refined cheaper here than it can be 
refined in England or on the Continent ; and 1 believe it 
would cost more than double to refine sugar in Cuba 
than it would to refine it here." — Ways and Means Investi- 
gation, Sept., 1878. 

Testimo7iy of Theodore Haventeyer : '' Sugar must be re- 
fined even if it is necessary to put only one pail of lime 
into it. Now that one pail I can put into it cheaper than it 
can be done in Cuba. We can in this country take a low 
grade of sugar — 3I and 4 cents a pound — and make any 
grade of sugar and sell it as cheap as any country in the 
world." — Ibid. 

The following comparison of English and home prices 
of sugars also demonstrate the truth of the above prop- 
ositions. 

Thus, centrifugal sugars cost in England £2^ per ton, 
or about 24s. 3d. net per 100 pounds, equal to 5.39-100 
cents per pound American currency. The refined pro- 
duct (selecting the best quahty of refined sugar for com 
parison) costs 31s. per 112 pounds in England, Avhich is 
equal in American gold to 7 cents per lb. 

Difference in 
Cost of /'iiiw. Cost of Cut Loaf. Refining. 

England, free 5.39 cents. 7. cents. 1.61 cts. 

United States, duty p'd 8.37 " 9.87 " 1.50'^ 



7t> 



This, therefore, shows that the American consumer 
pays eleven cents per loo lbs. less for his refined sugar 
— exclusive of duty; which, on a consumption of i,ooo,- 
000,000 pounds of refined sugar, is equivalent to a saving 
of $1,100,000 per annum. 

The following table, exhibiting the average price of raw 
sugars in New York from 1858 to 1878, and the average 
price obtained by the reftners during the same period for 
A sugars (the term used by the trade to designate the 
best quality of refined coffee sugar which all refiners 
make), also illustrates in a most striking manner the re- 
cent reduction in the prices of this one of the great 
staples of food, as w^ell as the recent rapid progress in 
perfecting and cheapening the American refining processes. 



Years . 


Cost of Raw 
per lb . 


Sugar 


Average pi 
Refined A 


'ice of 
Sugar. 


Difference. 


1868. 


11 cents 


per lb . 


14.95 cents 


per lb . 


3.95 cts. 


1869. 


11.40 " 








14.99 




i i 


3.59 


" 


1870. 


9.34 " 








12.81 




i I 


3.47 




1871. 


8.94 " 








12.15 




'- 


3.21 




1872 . 


8.81 " 








11.69 




( i 


2.88 




1873. 


7.88 " 








10.43 




" 


2.55 




1874. 


7.88 " 








10.16 




t f 


2.28 




1875. 


7.92 " 








10.14 




i ( 


2.22 




1876. 


8.39 " 








10.46 




(( 


2.07 




1877. 


8.77 " 








10.39 




( . 


1.62 





And for the current year (1878), the margin of the 
refiners is reported as considerably less than for 1877. 

It is a further point of interest in this connection that the 
experts in sugar refining sent by the French Government 
to the (Philadelphia) Centennial Exposition of 1876 were 
found by the refiners here and by the manufacturers of 
machinery and apparatus for refining, to represent a degree 
of skill and economical working not at all commensurate 
with that which was shown to them in the best refineries 
of the United States. 

The sugar refining interest of the country ought, 
therefore, to have attained a position which renders it 



independent of any class legislation or government aid 
in its favor, It ought neither to ask aid or to need any 
protection. But what it does ask, and ask legitimately, 
is, tJiat it may he allowed to freely buy and use for its im- 
mense trade all and every variety of the raiv product^ come 
from whatever source it may ; and that, luhen any such raw 
product is imported from any foreign country, it may not be 
discriminated against by any tariff classification in such a 
2vay as to prevent American refiners from using the same 
variety of razv material as employed by tJieir foreign competi- 
tors ; but that it may be admitted to enter our ports 
on paying a rate of duty which shall be the exact ad 
valorem equivalent that is assessed upon all other im- 
ported sugars. That is to say, if Congress decides 
that an equivalent of 60 per cent, ad valorem must, 
for revenue purposes, be assessed in a specific form 
on all imported sugars, then let a sugar from China, cost- 
ing 3:^ cents per pound pay 2.10 per pound duty, and 
a sugar from Cuba costing 5| cents pay .330 cents per 
])Ound ; and not by charging China sugars costing 3 J 
cents, and Cuba sugars costing 5^ cents with a uniform 3 
cents per pound duty, eiiectuall}^ prevent all sugar impor- 
tations from China. In short the grievance which the 
American sugar refiner would experience in case of the 
enactment of a uniform rate of duty on all sugars would 
be precise^ the same as that of the iron manufacturer, 
if the Government should impose a imiform rate of dut>' 
on cheap pig-iron and expensive " puddled " or bar-iron ; 
or as that of the miller, in a country not producing 
wheat sufficient for its consumption, if a lower duty 
should be imposed on flour than upon the imported wheat 
of which the flour is to be made. 

Relation of the Sugar Refining Business in the Labor 
Interests of the Country, — The extent of the business of re- 
fining sugar in the United States — the amount of capital 
invested, the value of the annual product, and the number 
of laborers employed — have already been noticed (see 



72 

pages 8-S). All interested in the continued industrial 
prosperity and development of the country must naturally 
wish that this great business may be encouraged and 
continue to develope and prosper ; and in respect to the 
nature of the encouragement which it is essential that it 
should receive in order to increase and prosper, the 
advocates of protection and free trade can fortunately 
meet on common ground. For the kind of protection by 
the Government which the sugar refiners seek is just what 
the most earnest advocates of free trade are prepared to 
grant ; namely, non-interference by the Government to the 
greatest possible extent ; freedom from all discriminating 
taxes, and a supply of the raw material for elaboration on 
terms as favorable as are enjoyed by foreign competitors. 

The raw material most profitable for the use of the 
sugar refiner are the sugars of lozv grades avd low price \ 
and although the tariff of 1870 was devised with the 
special intent of giving to the refining interests of the 
Uuited States a privilege which had before been denied 
them, namely, that of importing and using such sugars ; 
yet the fact that the existing tariff commences its classifi- 
cation with No. 7 Dutch Standard, and levies one uniform 
rate of duty on all sugars below that number, still 
renders the importation into the United States of a large 
variety of cheap sugars, which the English refiners profit 
ably use, absolutely impossible. * From the lower 

*In evidence on this point, attention is asked to the following statement, 
(furnished by request by one of the principal sugar brokers in New York) 
showing, what varieties of sugar are now prevented from coming to the 
United States, because their natural brightnnss of color renders them 
liable to the payment of a duty, on importation, disproportionate to their 
intrinsic value , and which for such reason now seek almost exclusively 
the English market. 

" China produces many different grades of sugars, and some of the 
cheapest and lowest kinds are quite useful, but could not bear a duty of 
over No. 7 D. S. ; wherefore it would be extremely risky to buy them, with 
that liability contingent on account of their color. 

"Philippine Islands. — As Itoilo sugar is to some extent of a bright 
yellowish nature ; and as the darker grades cannot be bought without a 



73 

grades of sugar any higher grade can be made by a 
''dividing'' process. Sugar simply purged of its molasses 
and in its most crude form constitutes the typical raw 
m.iterialof the sugar refiner, and every class above crude 
raw sugar is an advance in manufacture, which reduces 
(lightens) the color through the added expense of labor 
and capital. The higJicr the grade of raiv sugar imported, 
tJierefore, into the United States, the less work remains to be 
done upon it here, and the less home labor is employed upon it. 
On the other hand, the lower the grade of sugar imported, the 
larger is the field offered for the employment of both do- 
mestic capital and labor. An examination of the books 
of one of the largest and most successful sugar refineries 
in the United States shows that the cost of refining, 
exclusive of interest on capital, is approximately 
apportioned in the following manner : For labor, 
direct, 30 per cent. ; for packages (the materials for which 
are derived entirely from the northwestern States), 30 per 
cent; fuel (coal), 12 per cent.; bone-black, machinery, 
cartage, &c., 28 per cent. The fifteen hundred millions 
(1,500,000,000) pounds of sugar annually refined in the 
United States require the expenditure, at the very least, 
for refining, of one cent per pound on the average ; or 
\vhat is the same thing, $15,000,000 per annum a^e 
directly disbursed b}^ the domestic sugar refining in- 
terest on account of labor (direct), materials and capital. 

proportion of the former,it is unprofitable to buy thesa sugar.-;, unless they 
are cheaper than others of the same class. Cebuvs, naturally brigh^, bat 
cannot afford to pay more than the duty on some Mani'a kinds-, which 
ar3 under No. 7, D. S..wher3as the dbn miy ex333d that numb3r. It 
therefore goes largely to England. 

'• SiAM and Pen'an?t. pro:lu3e good low gr.idss, whioh do not co-ne to this 
country, as there is graat risk of their being as33ss3d with duty as over 
No. 7 D. S. , which they cannot afford. 

"Java produces some low gralsi of Ja3at-:a anl syrup su'^^ar, which run 
very irr3gul:ir, as to quality, but would pay her3 a duty of say 7 D. S., 
which frequently they cannot bear. 

"Bengal sugar is very irregular, but might do very well for the 
country if they paid no higher than No, 7, D. S., but such an assessment 
cannot be relied upon. 



74 

A uniform rate of duty on sugar, discriminating against 
the importation of the lower grades, will needlessly divert 
this large disbursement into the hands of foreigners (for 
sugars, as will hereafter be proved, can, under natural 
conditions, be refined cheaper here than in other coun- 
tries), and leave to American capital and labor in its 
place, the narrow and pitiful field of a partial participation 
in the business of transporting from foreign ports of a vast 
amount of perfected product which legitimately should 
be produced in the United States, and represent the joint 
employment of domestic labor and capital. 

In proof of these averments, the following evidence is 
submitted : 

From one hundred pounds of melado, or a low sugar, 
which some countries only can produce, a European re- 
finer can make, say 52 pounds of No. 13, and 36 pounds 
of molasses. If No. 13 would pay only ihe same duty as 

" Jaggeey is also made by the natives, in a most primitive manner, and. 
might i^ass 7. D. S. , when first put on board ; but the heavj' drainage on 
the voyage will bring it up to a brightness, without particular increase of 
intrinsic value, as to make it liable to assessment as No. 7 D. 8. These J. 
I. kinds are not brought to this country, but find ready buyers for the 
English market . 

"Prom E3YPT, low grades are extensively shipped to England; but very 
few of them can be brought here, owin^ to the color generally running 
too high. 

" In the Brazil, sugar is made in an imT)erfect manner, but the better 
lower grades, such as Maranham and Mariono find their way nearly alto- 
gether to the English markets, as the duty is generally too high for this 
market. 

"In Peeu, Centeal America, and different other minor producing regions, 
low sugar can be found, practically excluded from this market, by reason 
of color classification, out of all proportion to its value. 

It is to be considered that in many of the countries named sugar pro- 
duction is conducted by an ignorant native class, who cannot be induced 
to change their methods to suit consuming markets even if the advantage 
to them could be made clear^ and the process of manufacture there 
remains about the same as it may have been a century ago. 

" I think it may be safelv estimated that the quantity of such grades as 
described, yearly exported to and almost exclusively controlled by the 
En;3;lish markets, amounts to not less than 200,000 tons, or 448,000,000 of 
pounds." 



75 

the melado, the foreign refiner could separate the lower 
grades and import them into the United States in a di- 
vided state at a less rate of duty than the American re- 
finer would be compelled to pay for the low grade; as, for 
example, the American refiner, under one rate of duty, 
would pay for loo pounds of Melado, 

at 2j cents $2 50 

The same sugar only di- 
vided abroad would pay 
duty as follows : 

52 pounds No. 13, at 

2j cents.. .,. $1 30 

36 pounds molasses at 
J cent. 18— $1 48 



Difference in favor of 

foreign producer . . $1 02 per 100 pounds.* 

Under the stimulent thus offered to the foreign pro- 
ducers, it is evident that none of the lower grades ot 
sugar would be imported into the United States ; knd 
that this assertion is in accordance with the judgment of 
those most familiar with the sugar trade, attention is 
next asked to the following expressions of opinion brought 
out by the recent inquiries of the Ways and Means Com- 
mittee of the House of Representatives (September, 1878). 

Q. (By Mr. Wood, Chairman). I am requested to ask 

* That the existing tarifif does not oifer any such striking inequalities, 
but that its specific duties on sugars, are almost exactly proportioned — 
when reduced to ad valoreiis -to the varying values of the varying grades 
or numbers, is very clearly shown by the following table : 

Raw— Cost in producing country. Duties. Net. Ad valorem. 

Melado 3 cents per pound, 1^X25 per cent.— 1.87 62| per cent. 

No. 7 3.50 " 1^X25 " —2.17 62^ " 

No. 10.... ^... 4 " 2X25 " —2.50 62.^ " 

No 13 4.50 2ix25 " -2.88 64 

.Refined — Cost in producing counti-y. Duties. Xef. Ad valorem. 

No. 13 to 16 5.5 J cents per poand. 2|X25 per cent.— 3.437. 62^ per cent. 

No. 10 to 23. . . .6.50 " 3^^x25 '• -^.06 62^ ' 

Above 20... '....8 " 4x25 " —5 62| " 



76 

you whether yon were ever in favor of a uniform rate of 
duty, if the duty was one-half cent a pound ? 

A. {^By Laurence Tiinmre, of the firm of Moses Taylor 
& Co., sugar importers, and a member of the Jay Custom 
House Commission'). I am in favor of a uniform rate of duty 
if the duty was one-half cent a pound, or even one cent a 
pound — I should then be in favor of a uniform rate of 
duty. 

Q. I suppose you mean one rate of duty ? 

A. Yes ; one rate on all sugars. 

Q. Would not that practically exclude the lower 
grades ? 

A. I think not ; the country would bear one cent a 
pound, uniform rate of duty, and the business of the 
country go on. 

Q. I want to get your opinion as to whether importers 
would import an article of little value and pay as much 
duty upon it as upon a higher grade, a sugar of higher 
value? 

A. I think that a rate of duty anywhere from one-half 
a cent to one cent a pound would have advantages to the 
refinery interests of the country, from the fact that we 
would overcome the discrimination against lower grades 
of goods, and those goods would still come in to be used 
by the refiners. I think when the rate of duty is three 
cents a pound it would be utterly impossible for any 
science or mechanism to bring goods in at a relative dif- 
ference of cost such as that might be, and overcome it 
by any process of manufacture we might introduce ; con- 
sequently the business would go to the wall. 

Q. Then you think the importer would import the 
lower grades of sugar, paying as much duty upon it as 
he would upon the higher grades? 

A. Paying a duty, say three-quarters of a cent a 
pound. 

Q. The horizontal duty upon all sugars ? 

A. Yes; of three-quarters of a cent ; but every quarter 
you go up on duty is so much discrimination against 



71 

lower goods. You make it a cent a pound and probably 
it would be improbable ; make it a cent and a halfand it 
would be impossible ; make it three cents and we should 
import nothing but the highest grades of sugar approxi- 
mating to No. 1 6 in color, while all poorer grades would 
pass to Europe, to the Clyde in Scotland, and to Eng- 
land, and there they would be manufactured and sent 
back in manufactured state, and come in under the 
higher grade of i6. 

Testimony of Solon HumpJircys : 
By the Chairman : 

Q. Please state the house you are connected with in 
business, and how far you have been engaged in import- 
ing sugars ? 

A. 1 am connected with the house of E. D. Morgan & 
Co., the largest portion of whose business is the importa- 
tion of sugars from all parts of the world ; I have been 
connected with it as partner since 1856, and in former 
years was a clerk. 

Q. You have had large experience in the importation 
cf sugars? 

A. Well, I can say that we are amongst the largest im- 
porters of sugars in this country, and have been. 

Q. From all parts of the world? 

A. All parts of the world. 

Q. Have you had your attention called to this propo- 
sition of having one uniform rate of duty upon all 
sugars ? 

A. I have. 

Q. And if the rate should be 2\ cents a pound upon 
all sugars, what would be the effect upon the lower grade 
of sugars? 

A. It would practically exclude them from this coun- 
try. 

Q. You heard Mr. Turnure's opinion on that subject? 

A. I heard most of it and I agree with what he said. 

Q. You concur with him ? 



73 

A. I do, sir. 

Q. Loss of revenve, enhancing the price to the con- 
sumers, and driving the lower class of sugars out of the 
market ? 

A. I do, sir. 

Q. Where would this low class of sugars go? 

A. It would go to the refiners of Europe, and very in- 
ferior sugars that we noAv consume here, and want here, 
would probably be used in Europe largely for distillery 
purposes, as they were in former times. 

Q. What would be the effect upon our refiners then if 
these low grades were thus excluded ? 

A. It would, as I regard it, practically destroy the re- 
tining industry of this country. 

Q. And this country would have to depend upon the 
foreign refined sugars for its consumption ? 

A. That would be the effect unless the tariflfwasso ad- 
justed — the business of refining would be driven to 
other countries. 

It should be borne in mind that these two witnesses, 
whose characters are unimpeachable, and Avhose oppor- 
tunities for forming a judgment have not been surpassed, 
are not either directly or indirectly interested in the sugar 
refining business, but are importers of sugars, whose inter- 
est it is to import and sell as many sugars into this coun- 
try as possible, and irrespective of any use that may be 
made of them. 

Again, if the business of manufacturing refined sugars in 
the United States was in a condition in respect to the 
tariff that most other branches of domestic industry at 
present sustain, and a revision of the tariff was sought for 
by the refiners on the ground of protection, or defense 
against the import of the cheaper products of foreign 
competitors, the advocates of free trade or of a tariff for 
revenue purposes exclusively might object that it was in- 
expedient to longer tax all the consumers of so important 
an article of food as sugar for the benefit of an industry 
which, it is acknowledgea, has been very long established 



79 

and has been very prosperous. But the issues involved 
are not at all of this character. As already pointed out, 
there is little doubt that sugar can now be rehned at a less 
cost in the United States than in any other country ; and 
such being the case, it is certain that if the importation of 
sugars was free, or if a draw-back to the full equivalent to 
the duty was allowed, the exportation of refined sugars 
would rapidly become an important feature in our foreign 
commerce, as it has already to some extent under the ex- 
isting unsatisfactory drawback system ; the exportation of 
refined sugars to Great Britain (our chief competitor in 
this business) and to other foreign countries having 
amounted for the year 1876 to 51,840,977 pounds. 

To understand how it is that the advantage in the re- 
fining of sugar has come to accrue to this country it 
is necessary to bear in mind that every advancement of 
sugars beyond their most crude state is the result of the 
application of skill and capital, and that such conditions 
can only be availed of to the greatest profit in localities 
where population is dense, capital abundant and cheap, 
and the facilities for transportation cheap and abundant. 
It is the uniform experience of those European countries 
in which the raw material in the form of " beet sugar " 
is produced, and afterwards refined before consumption 
or exportation, that the refining can be much more 
cheaply conducted in the great cities than m sugar factories 
established on or near the beetroot farms, and where the 
beet juice undergoes its first manipulation. Great 
ingenuity has been displayed by inventors in attempting 
to attain what is theoretically the most economical result, 
namely, the perfection of product at the point of 
original production. But all attempts in this direction, 
though encouraged by governments, and aided by 
the highest resources of chemistry and mechanics, 
have utterly failed of success; and the refining of 
sugar is now concentrated in Europe, in such cities 
as Paris, Prague, Magdeburg, Halle, London, and Liver- 
pool. It would therefore seem to follow, that if the 



8o 

attempt to refine sugar at the points of original produc- 
tion has failed in the countries possessing all the resources 
of the highest civilization, it could not possibly succeed on 
the cane-sugar plantations of West Indies, Demerara, 
Manila, or Brazil; Avhere skilled labor is scarce; the 
climate enervating; fuel and materials of almost all de- 
scriptions expensive, and the manufacturing operations 
in place of being carried on continuously the year 
through, are concentrated in the space of a few months. 
And whatever degree of success may have hitherto 
been attained in these localities in producing high 
grade sugars cannot be regarded as other than 
abnormal, and as the result of the bounty offered by 
our existing tariff. The fact that, working under an3'thing 
like equal conditions, the American refiner is now able to 
defy foreign competition, is mainly due to the circumstance, 
that in this department ol industry, as in the manufacture 
of watches, boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, fire- 
arms, and some other products, the American mind has ot 
late been more quick and fertile in the invention and 
application of new economies in the way of machinery 
and processes than that of the foreigner. And no more 
important industrial question can to-day be put to the 
American public, and none which answered in the affirma- 
tive will do more to revive business, than, shall the ad- 
vantages which as a nation we now possess in this depart- 
ment of manufacture be utilized to the highest possible 
maximum ? For the refining of sugar is one of the great in- 
dustries of the world, and is certain to become even more 
important than it now is ; inasmuch as with the increase of 
wealth, the cheapening of price, and elevation of taste, the 
masses will not be content to use cheap, coarse food of any- 
kind ; and the mind can hardly at once realize the im- 
pulse that would be given to our shipping, the increase of 
our exports, the enlarged opportunities for the employ- 
ment of our labor, and the great measure of prosperity 
that would especially come to our Atlantic cities, if as a 



nation we could occupy the front place in this depart 
ment of manufacture. 

Since 1870 there has been a very great change in the 
character of the sugars consumed by the people of the 
United States. Formerly, say prior to 1870, from 50 to 
60 per cent, of the product of the great refineries of this 
countr}' was of high grade white sugar ; but at present the 
average product of such kinds of sugars is probably not 
over 18 to 20 per cent, of the gross result. The popular 
taste now runs to soft refined sugars to the extent of 
about 70 per cent, of the present total domestic consump- 
tion of refined sugars ; and such sugars cannot be profitably 
made from the high grade of foreign sugars, but they can 
be from the cheaper low grades. 

The business of sugar refining in the United States, in 
common with most other branches of domestic manufac- 
tures, has been increased during the last decade to an 
extent out of all proportion to the legitimate demands of 
the country. The war gave the original stimulus, " and 
as everybody thought the demand would continue to 
increase indefinitely, they kept on putting more capital 
into the business." Revulsion and depression have now 
come, and not a few of the oldest established houses have 
been obliged to succumb, while all are working at greatly 
reduced profit, or at no profit at all. 

The effect of a single rate of duty on all sugars, if the 
refiners continue to work, will increase the difficulties of 
the situation by increasing the prcduct of refined sugars 
seeking a market ; for a high grade of sugar requires less 
refining and employs less labor than a low grade, and the 
existing capacity of the refineries will be accordingly 
greatly increased by giving them only high grades to 
work upon. An exact parallel to what may be here ex- 
pected has actually occurred in the paper manufacture, 
by the extensive introduction of wood pulp, which being 
raw material advanced half way towards the 
finished product — paper — has to nearly that extent, by 
supplementing the existing power and machinery, in- 



82 

creased the capacity of the existing mills. And occuring 
at a time when the power of paper production was 
already in excess of the demands of a normal consumption, 
and a general depression of all industries was occasioning 
in addition a great and unusual economy in the use of 
paper, the result has been so disastrous that by general 
agreement the paper manufacturers of the United States 
are now (November, 1878). running their machinery but 
a stipulated portion of the time. 

Third. — Will a uniform or one rate of duty 
on imported sugars benefit the domestic con- 
SUMER? 

If a uniform or one rate of duty on all imported raw 
sugars acts as a prohibition or restraint on the importation 
of the lower grades of sugars used by the refiners in this 
country, and from which the higher grades, fit for table 
use, are made, it must legitimately follow that the 
'' centrifugal, " or " new process " sugars of Cuba, 
grading as No, 13 to 16, or in fact any high grade of 
foreign sugars, Avill absolutely or to a great extent take 
possession of our market. Competition for the domestic 
supply being restricted or destroyed, (and the export of 
refined sugars coincidently prevented), one of the surest 
guarantees of low prices to the sugar consumers, i. e., the 
great mass of our people, will be taken away ; as the 
consumer benefits by competition, be it in respect to 
sugar, cloth, beef or potatoes, and not merely by home 
competition, but by competition that comes from every 
part of the globe. 

To further illustrate this point, suppose the Cuban 
planter can now sell his semi-refined centrifugal sugar 
(say No. 13, D. S.) in New York at 8 cents per pound, 
inclusive of a duty of 2\ cents per pound. His com- 
petitor in the same market, who is the American refiner, 
would naturally, for the purpose of retaining the market, 
make every effort, by working closer, buying more care- 
fully, and studjnng econom}^, to offer his corresponding 



83 

products at a shade lower in price, say 7| cents. Under 
such circumstances the consumer would always be 
benefited, or have a constant guarantee when he buys 
sugar of obtaining the full value or equivalent for his 
money. But if now, on the other hand, the American 
refiner is discriminated against by the tariff classification, 
and by reason of such discrimination is not able to supply 
himself with his raw material as advantageously as he 
could under normal conditions, the Cuban planter will 
then enter our market in a great measure or entirely free 
from domestic competition. And under such circumstances 
no one can doubt that the American consumer will 
sooner or later be obliged to pay higher prices for his 
sugars than he now does. 

Take another point of no little significance in respect 
to this question. If the American market is practically 
closed against the importation of low grade sugars, and 
competition for their purchase or supply is restricted, a 
reduction in their price is inevitable. The English re- 
finers, who in common with all other refiners, especially 
prefer or need such sugars for their work — will therefore 
obtain their raw material on more advantageous terms 
than at present, and so increase their profits and their 
markets. Conversely, the demand for high grade sugars 
being increased, the result must be to enhance their cost 
to the consumers, or what is the same thing to the public. 

How far these views further correspond with, and are 
sustained by, the opinion of the acknowledged authorities 
on the subject of sugar, who testified during the past 
year, before the Ways and Means Committee, will be 
seen by the following extracts from their testimony. 

Testimony of Mr, Turnurc : 

Question by the Chairman, Mr. Wood: "What, in your 
opinion, would be the effect of a duty of 2\ cents upon 
all sugars up to No. i6, upon the cost of the article to the 
consumer? 

A. Of coursg it would be very great. 



84 

O. Would it not enhance the cost? 

A. Certainly ; and enhance the value, of course, very 
largely. 

Q. And sugars that are now worth 8 cents would then 
be paying 9 or 10? 

A. Of course ; I can't tell precisely what that advance 
would be, but there would be an advance, of course,because 
persons who purchase now the sugars in common use 
which are made out of the lower grade of goods would 
have no goods to make them from. 

Q. Have they the facilities at present in- Cuba for re- 
fining sugars that we have? 

A. To a certain extent, yes. 

Q. What would be the effect upon the refineries of 
Cuba ? 

A. It would increase their number and make Cuba the 
grand refinery of the world. 

Q. What would be the effect upon our own refineries ? 

A. It would be their destruction. 

Q, Do you think that is desirable? 

A. That is a question of political economy. 

Q. Could they lay down from Cuba the refined sugar 
cheaper to the American consumer than it is now laid 
down at one rate of duty ? 

A. It would depend upon the rate of duty assessed 
upon it ; if the refiner was at liberty to import such goods 
as he required to use at a differential duty, then the 
refiner could, of course, have the advantage over the 
Cuban refiner, because he has the advantage of labor and 
everything else here, which they have not in that 
country ; but if the refiner were obliged to pay the same 
rate of duty upon their raw material — upon crude stock 
that they would only pay upon the manufactured — I think 
the refiner would labor at a great disadvantage. 

Q. I suppose how far the Cuban refiners could bring 
us their goods would depend upon what tariff we put 
upon them ? 

A. Precisely ; but the principle would apply where 



85 

there was one rate of duty, and where that was sufficiently 
hig-h to make the discrimination against low goods. If you 
say, for instance, a certain class of goods that cost 8 cents 
shall pa}^ a duty of 4 cents a pound, — that is, 50 per cent, of 
their value ; and then you take another class of goods that 
only cost 4 cents a pound, and say they shall pay four cents 
duty^ — that is one hundred per cent, of their value ; how 
many goods of the 4-cent quality do you think w^ould 
come in? Don't you see the refiner using the 4 cent 
goods would be paying 100 per cent, ad valorem'^ he 
couldn't use them ; he would have 50 per cent, discrimin- 
ation against them and it would be utterly impossible 
for him to use them. 

Q. If the effect of that rate of duty would be to bring 
in no sugar under, say, No. 13 or No. 16, what effect 
would that have upon the collection of the revenue now 
derived chiefly from low grade sugars ? Would not they 
be sent to Europe ? 

A I have thought of that question very much; I think 
it would reduce the revenue, but to what extent I can't 
say ; of course the value of an article enters a great deal 
into its consumption ; if you enhance the value of an 
article, you decrease its consumption ; how far you could 
enhance the value of sugars by making one rate of duty 
— three cents — and compelling us to buy our supplies of 
manufactured sugars from those made abroad are all 
questions of mathematics, which I have not had time to 
solve ; but there is something in that question, and I am 
not sure but that the revenue would be decreased very 
much indeed, and that it would affect the price of sugars 
on hand. 

Q. It has been argued that the effect of one rate of duty 
would be first to exclude particular classes of sugars 
that the refiners use ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Secondly, loss of revenue to the Government on 
those sugars ? 

A. Yes, sir, 



86 

Q, And thirdly, enhancing- the cost of refined sugars 
which now enter into piibhc use throughout the country 
to the consumer ? 

A. That argument is sound — I agree with that entirely." 

— Testimony of Solon HuiiipJireys. 

Q. "You heard what Mr. Turnure said with refer- 
ence to the enhancing of the price of sugars to the con- 
sumer in this country — do you concur with him in that ? 

A. I do, sir ; and I will state my reasons, if you would 
like. 

The Chairman : Yes, sir. 

Mr. Humphreys : I suppose that more than two-thirds 
of all the sugar of commerce is inferior sugar — consists of 
the lower sugars, sugars under No. lo — yes, I may 
say under No. 9, and probably they polarize with 
an average polarization of 80 to 86 ; now the 
higher grades of sugar, including these centrifugal 
sugars, probably would not comprise more than one- 
thirds of the sugar of commerce ; I am now speaking of 
cane sugar ; the production of the cane sugar of the world 
is about 2,100,000 tons, of which the United States takes 
about 700,000 or one-third. So the effect of one rate of 
duty would be the difference of nearly a cent a pound, as 
between high grades and low grades. ^ •?«• * You 
can readily see what the relative discrimination would be 
against this two-thirds of the sugar of commerce that is 
produced. The percentage would be enormous. The 
practical effect, I say, would be, that we should be com- 
peting in all the world for these high grades of sugar ; for 
these high grades of sugar are absolutely essential to the 
refiners' business. I believe that any refiner here will con- 
firm what I say. They are absolutely essential, 1 think, 
for the production of the higher grades of refined sugar. 
That same necessity exists with the refiners in all other 
parts of the world ; they must have the higher grades in 
order to mix them with the lower grades of sugar to advan- 
tage. But the practical effect would be that we would be 



S7 

competing" for the hii^her grades of sugar all over the 
world, and it would undoubtedly enhance their cost, and in 
a large degree, so that I have not any doubt about the state- 
ment that Mr. Turnure made, that it would largely en- 
hance the cost of sugar to our consumers to fix one rate 
of duty on sugar ; 1 have not any doubt about it in my 
own mind. 

Q. And what effect would it have upon low grades? 

A. It would turn them away from this country, and de- 
prive our refiners, in a large degree, of low grades, which 
we understand they need in order to make all classes of 
sugar that our people want — not only high grades of re- 
fined sugar, but low grades ; they all need these inferior 
sugars. 

Q. What Avould be the effect upon our refiners, then, if 
these low grades were thus excluded ? 

A. It would, as I regard it, practically destroy the re 
fining industry of this countr}', 

Q. And this countr}^ would have to depend upon the 
foreign refined sugars for its consumption ? 

A. That same to the effect unless the tariff was so ad- 
justed ; that would be the effect, that refining would be 
driven to other countries." 

Testimony of TJico. Havcnicyer, of tJie firm of Havcmcyers 
& Eldei% of New York, Sugar Refiners: 

Question. " What, in your opinion, would be the effect 
of imposing one uniform rate of duty on sugar? 

Answer. " It would increase the cost to the people of the 
United States eight million dollars ; I will prove it ; the 
sugar that Messrs. Ceballos & Co. import to-day costs 8| 
cents ; now, can I make from that sugar, costing Z\ cents 
a pound, a sugar that I can sell for ']\ cents a pound ? of 
course I cannot do it, because from a good article 1 can- 
not make a poor article, unless I go backwards ; but give 
me a poor article and, b}' my ingenuity, my brains, my 
energy, I can increase the value of it, and can still give 
the people a cheap sugar; but I cannot get a chca}) sugar 
from a dear basis." 



Four. — Effect of a uniform one rate of sugar 
duty on 'jhe national revenues. 

The next question is, how will a uniform or one rate 
of duty up to No. 1 6. D S. aiTect the national revenues ? 
And the answer is to be found in a simple arithmetical 
calculation. In 1877 the total foreign sugar from No. 7 
to No. 16 that entered into domestic consumption in the 
United States w^as 1,452,314,212 lbs., paying an aggregate 
duty of $34,176,019.65, which is, as near as possible, 2.36 
cents average duty per lb. The present rate of duty on 
all sugars above No. 1 (and not above No. 10) is 2 cents 
per lb., p/i^s 25 per cent., or 2.50 cents, w^hich plainly 
shows the average quality of the raw sugars imported 
is a little below No. 10 D. S. 

But 757,946,855 lbs., or more than half of the quantity 
of foreign raw sugar that directl}' or indirectly entered 
into consumption in the United States in 1877, ^^'^s not 
above No. 7 D. S., and, consequently, onl}^ paid a duty of 
I5 cents per Ih., />/?fs 25 per cent, ad valorem, or 2.18 cents 
per lb. 

Now, if the countr}' at present annually requires fifteen 
hundred (1,452,000,000) millions of pounds of raw sugar, 
averaging less than No. 10 in quality (from which the 
higher grades of sugar needed for consumption are re- 
fined), it certainly would not need to import more than 
twelve hundred (1,200,000,000) millions of pounds of the 
higher grades of foreign sugar to meet the equivalent 
demand for consumption, if all sugars not above No. 16 
in quality were admitted at a uniform rate of duty ; or, 
in other words, as the operation of refining diminishes the 
bulk of raw sugars not above No. 10 D. S. to the extent 
of from 15 to 20 per cent., the quantity of refined sugars 
in pounds which would need to be imported to meet the 
demands of domestic consumption would to a correspond- 
ing extent be diminished. It, therefore, follows, that in 
order to obtain an annual revenue of $34,176,000 out of 
twelve himdred million pounds of raw sugar, a duty of 
rather more than 2.84 cents per lb. would have to be 



89 

levied. Under such circumstances, the revenue from 
the importation of sugars would be collected from the 
highest grade of sugars produced in foreign countries, 
as the lower grades of sugar would not be able to pay 
any such rate as 2.84 cents per pound ; whereas, under a 
duty proportioned to the value of all the different quali- 
ties of sugars, the revenue is collected from sugars of low 
as well as high values and qualities. 

Does the one rate of duty on imported sugars involve an 
International question ? If a Federal law was framed and 
enacted Avhich declared in precise and specific language 
that all sugars imported into the United States from the 
islands of Cuba and Porto Rico should pay on entry a 
duty oi fifty per cent., and that all sugars imported from 
China, Brazil and the French, Dutch and British West 
and East Indian possessions should be subjected on entry 
to a duty of seventy per cent., such a law would undoubt- 
edly be regarded as good cause of international offense 
by the authorities of the countries discriminated against, 
and call forth immediate diplomatic protests and probably 
retaliatory commercial legislation. Whether similar re- 
sults would follow the enactment of a law which eftectu- 
ally accomplishes the same thing indirectly may be an 
open question ; but there can 1 e no doubt that the spirit 
of the law would be the same in the one case as in the 
other ; and that the so-called ** favored nation clause" in- 
corporated into most treaties, which provides for equality 
of political and commercial privileges between all treaty- 
making powers, would equally be violated in both in- 
stances. If legal precedents were needed, repeated 
decisions of the United States Supreme Court could be 
cited to the effect, thafc neither the Federal Government 
or the States can do indirectly that which it is clearly for- 
bidden them, either by organic or statute law^ to do 
directly. 

Docs the existing tariff, or a tariff proportionate in its 
rates to the value of imported sugars, exclude raiv grocery 
sugars, desirable and fitted for immediate consuption. and 



90 

for which there was formerly a large demand ? — This 
question is not unfrequently propounded, and in such a 
way as to carry the impression that the answer — if 
truthful — must be in the affirmative. Examination, how- 
ever, will satisfy that such an answer is not warranted 
by the facts. It is very true that previous to 1870 a large 
amount of raw grocery sugars was imported for direct 
consumption, and for the simple reason that under 
the tariff which was in force from 1862 to 1870, and 
which imposed a uniform rate of 3 cents on all sugars not 
above No. 12 D. S., the refiner could not import the low 
grades of sugars from which alone he could manufacture 
a grade to compete with " raw grocery." But at the 
present time — as would be equally the case if there were 
no duties whatever on sugars — the refiner can manufac- 
ture from the low grades a cheaper article of sugar, and 
one better fitted for consumption, than can be imported 
from any country. 

That the present tariff is not prohibitory of the impor- 
tation of '^ raw grocery sugars" (and that any tariff 
arranged on the ad valorcjn principle, the only equitable 
one, would not be) will be also evident from an inspection 
of the following figures: 

"Raw grocery '^ (as low as No. 13, which cannot 
strictly be thus designated, being poorer), are at present 
sold and invoiced at their place of production at not less 
than 51 cents per pound. The rate of duty is 2J + 25 per 
cent., or 3.403 cents, equal to 62 per cent, ad valorem. 
Sugar below No. 7 costing 3! cents per pound, pays i| 
+ 25 per cent, duty, or 2.18 cents, equivalent to 62\ per 
cent, ad valorem. The relative values of these two grades, 
after the payment of duty, remain therefore undisturbed, 
and if there was- any demand for raw groceries of grade 
not higher than No. 1 3 in preference to a corresponding- 
quality supplied by the refiners, the former would not fail 
to be imported to meet the demand. Quality being the 
same, the public always buys the cheapest article, irre- 
spectjve of the place or conditions of its production, 



91 

The Tea and Coffee Argtimenl. — Analogies in favor of a 
single uniform rate of duty on imported sugars have also 
been drawn from the single rates of duty formerly (and 
now in England) imposed on tea and coffee ; articles vary- 
ing greatly in quality and price, and in the case of the 
latter imported from various countries. The answer to 
whatever there may be in this point, is found in the fact 
that tea and coffee have reached the completed grade of 
manufacture, so far as the consumer is concerned, before 
they are imported ; that they are not and cannot be econo- 
mically produced within our territory ; and that, therefore, 
their admission at uniform specific, or ad valorem rates of 
duties does not concern in any way any producing or 
manufacturing interests in the countr)-. If a uniform 
specific dut)^ were imposed on the import of all tea and 
coffee, the consumer of the higher grades would clearly 
pay comparatively less than the consumer of the cheaper 
varieties ; but as there is at present no duty whatever 
imposed on the importation of either of these products, 
the question is devoid of an^' present ]>ractical interest. 

Classification of Sugars for Rfvenuk Purposks hv 

THE liSE of the PoEARlSCOl'E. 

The fact that sugar of a high degree of saccharine 
strength or purity can be and is made of any desired 
shade of color, and therefore that color is no reliable or 
certain test of the saccharine stiength cuul value of sugars, 
has long been recognized. 

The attention of the United States Treasury Depart- 
ment was drawn to the matter as far back as 1843, and 
under its direction many crude experiments were then 
made to determine the value of various sugars, syrups 
and molasses furnished by the Custom House. The pro- 
cesses reported and published by Congress were, how- 
ever, tedious and uncertain in result, and the investiga- 
tions amounted to nothing practically. But about this 
time the necessity for more exact methods for determin- 
ing the value of sugars, or sugar solutions in the extensive 



92 

beet-sugar works of Europe, led to the ws^^oi polarized light 
as a saccharometer (sugar-tester) ; and various instruments 
■for the purpose of practically applying this agency, 
were gradually invented. These instruments termed 
polariscopes"^ — have now come into universal use in 
ever}^ commercial center of the world where sugars of 
varying grades are bought and sold ; as well as in every 
Custom House — save those of the United States — where 
duties are levied on sugars proportionate to their value. 
And at the present time (as has been the case for years 
past), not a cargo of raw sugar, " muscovado," "■ clayed " or 
'' centrifugal " is sold or bought by any merchant in New 
York or other part of the L nited States, in Europe or in 
Cuba, the saccharine strength or value of which is not 
previously determined by examination through the 
polariscope of samples previously selected and reduced 
to an average. 

Such being the case, the inference would seem to be 
both logical, irresistible and conclusive, that the standard 
or instrumentality which the sugar manufacturers, im- 
porters, dealers and refiners all over the world have been 
induced to adopt, and after long experience continue to 
use, as the means of determining the value of raw sugar, 
should be also the instrumentality which the Government 
ought to recognize for the purpose of classifying raw sugars 
under the tariff ; or at least should adopt as an adjunct 
to the present tariff classification on the basis of color, 
with a view of preventing undervaluations in importations. 
As, however, the opinions of the trade are not onl}^ 
not unanimous on this subject, but as a strong and even 
bitter feeling and opposition among a greater or less 



* It is foreign to this inquiry to attempt to here give any description of 
this beautiful optical instrument. It is sufficient to say that the principles 
upon which it is founded are fully explained in every elementary work on 
natural philosophy or physics ; and that the instrument itself has long 
since passed out of the exclusive domain of the educator or scientific in- 
vestigator, and like the thermometer and hydrometer, has become a tool 
of commercial business and manufacturing industry. 



93 

number'of most intelligent men in every department of the 
trade has been manifested against the conforming of the 
Government, by use of the polariscope, to the universal 
practice of the merchants, it is important that such a 
curious commercial phenomenon should be analyzed, and 
the evidence on both sides of the question clearly pre- 
sented. With this view, attention is asked in the first in- 
stance to the testimony of the late Prof., Joseph Henry, Sec- 
retary of the Smithsonian Institute, and President of the 
American Academy of Science, to whom, as the scientific 
expert in the United States best qualified to judge, the 
Secretar)^ of the Treasurj^ in 1877, referred the question 
as to the accuracy of the polariscope, and the desirability 
of its use by the Government in determining the value 
of sugars for revenue purposes. 

This gentleman, after a most thorough examination, and 
with the assistance of persons well qualified to co-operate, 
reported to the Secretary of the Treasury, under date of 
February 5th, 1878, as follows: 

" After due deliberation on the subject, the following 
are our final conclusions : 

" That the quantity of crystallizable siigar in imported 
raw sugars should be estimated by the polarimeter, wJiicJi is 
an entirely trustivortJiy instrument, and one the use of wJiich 
can le.xdily be taught to any intelligent person of ordinary 
education.- 

" If the polarimeter should be adopted as the measure 
of the value of sugar, a supply of these instruments should 
be obtained from Germany, and their use taught to the 
appraisers by a person thoroughly acquainted with the 
theory and practice of the instrument. The accurac}^ of 
the instruments themselves should also be tested, and the 
appraisers from time to time be examined as to their skill 
in the use of the insrument." 

The details of this investigation, which were embodied 
in the report, showed, that when with a view of testing 
the accuracy of the polarimeter, solutions of pure sugar 



94 

were employed, the percentage of sugar indicated by the 
instrument was precisely lOO per cent.; and that when 
mixtures of sugar and another substance (sak) were 
tested, the variations from exact indications of the amount 
of pure sugar contained in the mixture were in every in- 
stance within one per cent. 

The subject of the use and accuracy of the polariscope 
in determining the value of imported sugars, irrespective 
of their colors, formed also an important part of an in- 
quiry conducted during the present year (1878) by a sub- 
committee of the Committee of Ways and Means of the 
United States House of Representatives (Hon. Fernando 
Wood, Chairman),- and the following is the substance of 
the evidence by them elicited. 

Testimony of Henry F. Hitch [of the firm of H. H. Swift 
& Co., of New York, importers of Brazil and East India 
sugars), September lyth, 1878 : 

^' Q. Have you had your attention called to the use of 
the polariscope with reference to testing the saccharine 
strength of sugar ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is your opinion on the subject ? 

A. Well, sir, my opinion is a very small one, indeed, 
in value, because we have data to go by and that decides 
that question completely. We have the entire crop of 
Europe, which is about twice and a half the crop of Cuba 
and twice the consumption of this country, which is all 
sold on analysis ; the polariscope is used, but it is all sold 
by the degree of saccharine matter. They say there is a 
great difficulty in introducing it, but I point to the fact 
that the whole crop in Europe is sold in that way to show 
that that is not the difficulty if they vote to try it. 

Q. What is the custom here between merchants ? 

A. All sugar when it arrives here is tested by the polar- 
iscope ; muscovado sugars as well as centrifugals ; with 
Muscovado sugars it is not so easy to test, they not being 
clear, and very small quantities being taken ; but there is 



95 

not the slighest difficulty with centrifugal sugar, and it is 
sold regularly in this market at so much per cent. — it is 
always so bought in Cuba. 

Q. Whereas, the government tests exclusive^ on 
color ? 

A. Yes, sir ; that was a perfect test before the intro- 
duction of the vacuum pans and the centrifugals — those 
have entirely changed the character of sugar ; it is still 
the test of open pan sugars — sugars made that way — and 
that was the way England always collected her duty^ be- 
cause it was a fair test ; she bought our sugars on the 
Dutch numbers, but those sugars were made by the open 
process, and it shows within a verv small fraction ; but 
with centrifugal sugars it is entirely different. 

Testimony of L. Turn tire of the firm of Moses Taylor 
& Co., Neti^ York : 

Q. Do you think that the color standard is of itself a 
sufficient protection to the Government when the color 
does not always denote the real quality of the article ? 

A. I do not, sir. 

** Q. What improvement or change could you sug- 
gest ? 

A. I think, sir, that the sugar of the commerce of the 
world is now sold under the test of the polariscope all 
over the world, and I can see no reason why that should 
not be adopted bv the Government ; it is adopted by all 
merchants throughout the world, and there is no reason 
whv the Government should not adopt the same test ; 1 
can see no reason'why sugars with the test of 98 with the 
])olariscope should come in at the same rate of duty be- 
cause they are the same color as sugars testing %6, their 
intrinsic value being far different." 

— Testimony of Solon Humphreys {of the firm of E. D. 
Morgan & Co., of Neiv York). 

A. '' Now, as I look at it, our tariff has been the [)rincipal 
cause of the building up of that (centrifugal sugar) industry 



96 

in Cuba, and it is an expensive one too in my opinion ; 
because the cost of making sugar, so far as the use of 
fuel goes, and because the operations of the planter are 
all compressed in a few months ; I do not believe it is any 
economy for the planter to spend a large amount of money 
to semi-refine sugar in any part of the world where sugar 
is produced ; and I do not believe that we shall be rid of 
this difficulty that we are now talking about untilour tariff 
is changed to meet that difficulty ; how can it be done? 
I know of no other way except by the use of the polari- 
scope. 

Q. If that were properly administered, you think the 
Cuban planter would not have this inducement, because 
his partial refinement would not evade our tariff? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. That would be the effect of it ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Now we are paying upon it $1,400,000 a year to the 
foreign producer, which is eventually paid by the Amer- 
ican consumer ? 

A. That is the conclusion 1 came to. 

Q. And the remedy for that, in your judgment, is the 
polariscope ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. By which the sugar would pay the duty which its 
inherent strength would require ? 

A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Do you feel that there would be any danger in the 
proper administration — it has been stated here that we 
could not rely upon the polariscope — what is your opin- 
ion on that subject ? 

A. I don't see any more difficulty in administering the 
tariff with the use of the polariscope than under the color 
test. 

Q. How is it in Europe ? 

A. In France, I understand the polariscope is used ; in 
England there is no duty on sugar, 

Q. What is the mercantile practice in this country ? 



97 

A. I can only say what my own practice is ; Ave never 
think of selling any sugar without ^having it tested, and I 
never knew of a refiner, or have not for the last year, but 
who has had his sugar tested ; and we aim as far as we 
can in buying our sugars in all ountries to ascertain and 
fix our limits of price that we pay by the relative strength 
of the sugar ; in some countries they have not got quite so 
far advanced as to use the polariscope yet, but in all the 
large sugar-producing countries its use is very general. 

Q. Has not the Dutch standard, as such, been abolished 
by the Dutch themselves ? 

A. I have been told so ; it is practically, as 1 under- 
stand, abolished. 

Q. Has any very serious difficulty ever arisen between 
your house and any buyer of your sugars, arising out of 
the differences of polariscope ? 

A. [ cannot call to mind any serious differences. 

O. It has been stated here that differences arise, some- 
times several points — variations — I would like to know 
your own observation with reference to the experience 
whether that frequently occurs ? 

A. Variations in the same lot of sugar. 

Q. Yes; the purchaser, for instance, would object to 
your own test of the polariscope by which you sold. 

A. I think the purchasers generally buy by their own 
tests ; they all, I believe, carry to a very great extent the 
examination of their own sugars, I think ; they buy by 
their own test, and we sell by ours. 

Q. Is there any reason why the polariscope should 
differ at all in the results reached if accurately admin- 
istered ? 

A. Not with the same sample of sugar. 

Q. What would be the effect of sampling sugar jn a 
damp condition and dry condition by the polariscope ? 

A. It would differ just as much as the moisture had 
evaporated. 

Q. What is your mercantile practice — in what condi- 
tion is the sugar that you apply the test to ? 



98 

A. We have it polarized ourselves as soon after sam- 
pling as we can have it done* 

Q. Then it is that your transactions are necessarily very 
quick ? 

A. Not necessarily. 

Q. For that purpose ? 

A. For that purpose, yes, sir.". 

Testimonony of Osgood Welsh ^ of the firm of S. & IV. 
Welsh, sugar importers, of Philadelphia and New York. 

Q. '' Have you any suggestion to make that would 
improve the present system ? 

A. I think the suggestions made in the main by Mr. 
Turnure and Mr. Humphreys are very good, that is to 
adopt the polariscope. 

Q, And you approve of that suggestion? 

A. I approve of that ; tlijen it seems to me that you 
want to get a specific duty that would be in its workings 
as near an ad valorem duty as possible, then it would bear 
fairly upon all sugars and all merchants ; there are some 
gentlemen here whose business is exclusively with Cuba, 
who import solely or mainly these high centrifugal 
sugars, and it is very plain to be seen that they want 
these protected at the cost of those who import low grade 
sugars ; that is no fairer than if some of these gentlemen 
that import low grade sugars should ask a duty that pro- 
tects their business to the injury of the business of other 
men. 

Q. What is your opinion of the present rates — are they 
fair upon all classes of sugar ? 

A. Relative rates? 

Q. The present tariff upon sugar ? 

A. As Mr. Turnure and Mr. Humphreys told you, the 
whole process of manufacturing sugar has been changed 
within the past few years, so that the tariff is no longer a 
good one. 

Q. But you think the additional test to determine the 
accuracy of the quality, upon which the theory is that the 



99 

duty shall be levied, would prevent any of this low duty 
sugar being imported ? 

A. Unquestionably ; we all know that the price of 
w^hat we call a pound of sugar depends upon the amount 
of crystallizable sugar in that pound. If we know that it 
has a great deal of crystalizable sugar, we can get a good 
price for it, and if it has very little, we can get onl}^ a 
much lower price ; that is very plain. It seems to me 
that the Government should adopt the same standard for 
levying duty that merchants adopt in their transactions 
one with another. I would go further than Mr. Hum- 
phreys and Mr. Turnure ; I would fix a minimum polar- 
ization, and advance the duty for every degree of polar- 
ization ; but a great many people would tell you that is 
not practicable and cannot be done, and there are reasons 
why it should not be done, and they may be right; that 
is the plan suggested by Boston merchants ; I only men- 
tioned that to show how much I think of polarization." 

It may be also added that a majority of the importers 
and refiners of sugar in Boston favor the use of the polari- 
scope by the Government as a practical basis for the as- 
sessment of the duties on sugar. 

Objections to the Use of the Polariscopc. — The only person 
who appeared before the same committee at this session, 
and gave ,evidence in opposition to the adoption and use 
of the polariscopc by the Government, was Mr. Lawson 
N. Fuller, of the firm of AldamacS: Fuller, sugar refiners, 
of New York, Avho testified as follows : 

Testimony of Lazvson W. Fiillex: '' With regard to the 
polariscopc, while classification by Dutch numbers is bad 
enough, there is not the same opportunity for fraud in 
that, because a great many more men are judges of color 
than are judges of the test by the polariscopc, and while 
fraud could be perpetrated under tlic Dutch standard, it 
could occur to a much greater extent under the polari- 
scopc test, because a very little difference in a sample will 



100 

make two or three points in the test of sugars by the 
polariscope. For years the polariscope has been used by 
importers and refiners in connection with the Dutch stand- 
ard. In fact, we have had no way of governing the 
classification or testing the quahty of sugars. Some go 
on color, some on classification, and the seller will have 
his goods sampled and tested, and will make them test 
95 ; and then the buyer will have them sampled and 
tested, and they will test, perhaps, 92 ; and then both 
parties, knowing how much they are cheating each other, 
will come to a square understanding and strike a balance, 
just as though they had not sampled or tested the goods 
at all ; in Europe the dock companies have charge of the 
business, and they are held responsible by the Govern- 
ment and the appraiser, but if you adopt the polariscope 
here, where sugars pass through the Custom House under 
the eye of some gentleman employed by the Government, 
and whose decision is final, while I believe that men are 
generally honest, I believe also that some men's sight 
through the polariscope would be very defective if a fifty 
or a hundred dollar bill got into one end of the instru- 
ment. I never saw a cargo of sugars where the test by 
our test and the test by the importer's test did not vary 
from one to three or four^points, and in one instance they 
varied five points on a cargo of Porto Rico sugars. To 
substitute the polariscope for the present mode of testing 
would be simply jumping out of the frying-pan into the 
fire." 

Q. ''What would you think of applying the present color 
standard, and in addition applying the polariscope test 
upon each grade ? 

A. " You could make the same principle apply to the 
polariscope as to the sampling of sugars ; they would go 
hand in hand in fraud. 

Q. " But we must trust human agents ? 

A. " I admit that ; but I don't think we ought to throw 
temptation in the way of human agents ; I have got to 
be a pretty old man, but I don't want that temptation — 



101 

the opportunity ol defrauding the Government out of $5 
or $10 a hogshead. 

Q. " Don't you think you could resist it? 

A. " I might ; but I fear I should give way in the end, 
when I saw my neighbors all prospering while T was 
losing money every day ; and, as I stated in Washington, 
if the Government insists upon maintaining the present 
classification, or upon applyinir the polariscope test, we 
shall start business and make all we can out of the Gov- 
ernment. 

It is understood that the views of the sugar importers 
and refiners of Baltimore coincide generally with those 
entertained and (as above) expressed by Mr. Fuller; and 
testimony to this effect has been given at Washington 
before the Ways and Means Committee by R. D. Fisher, 
of the firm of C. A. Fisher & Co., of Baltimore, by repre- 
sentatives of the firm of Armstrong & Co., of New Haven, 
and others. 

But one scientific man of reputation has been found 
willing to place himself in opposition to the conclusions of 
Professor Henr}^, and the present custom of all merchants 
dealing in sugars, and of the leading governments of 
Europe imposing ad valorem duties on sugars, and con- 
demn the proposed practical use of the polariscope by 
the Government for the purpose of establishing values 
and classifications — namely. Professor C. F. Chandler, of 
Columbia College, New York; who, in viev/ of a meeting 
of sugar importers, merchants and manufacturers which 
assembled in New York April i8th, 1878, sent the follow- 
ing communication to the firm of Ceballos & Co., of New 
York importers, or consignees of Cuba sugars :* 

* This communication was sent to the meetinf? referred to on the 18th of 
April, 1878, and afterwards published and circulated in the form of a cir- 
cular. The following is an extract from the proceedings of this meeting, 
as rej)orted by the New York press of Friday, April 18th : 

" J. W. Candler, President of tLe Board of Trade of Boston, said that if 
the merchants expected intelligent legislation tliey must have intelligent 
action. He opposed the proposed tariff as discriminating against low- 



io2 

VVashingion, April i8th, 1878. 
Ceballos & Co., New York: 

^' In reply to telegram, regret 1 cannot return to attend 
meeting. I realize the importance ot fixing the duties so 
as to reduce to a minimum the opportunities for fraud ; not 
merely to protect the revenues of the country, but to 
protect the honest importers and manufacturers, and to 
avoid the general demoralization which is sure to attend 
any system which makes it impossible or difficult for men 
to conduct their business with honesty. 

In regard to the tariff on sugar, I am satisfied that the 
best system is the one formerl}^ in use, and Avhich has 
recently been recommended by Secretary Sherman — the 
adoption of a uniform duty for all sugars suitable for re_ 
fining. This plan will eliminate all frauds except those 
in weighing and will encourage improvements in the 
manufacture of raw sugar in foreign countries, thus 
cheapening in the end the raw material. 

grade sugars. This, he hehl, was a disadvantage to merchants, ship- 
owners, and the trade generally. He believed that the introduction of the 
vacuum pan in producing sugars had made the polariscope a necessity. 

"Robert Hewitt, Jr., read a despatch from Professor C. F. Chandler 
declaring the poloriscope irregular and untrustworthj^ 

" Solon Humphreys thought Professor Chandler was a theorist, and he 
said that his mercantile experience of over thirty years led him to disagree 
with the Professor . 

" Theodore Havemeyer said that Professor Henry had furnished an 
elaborate opinion the reverse of that of Professor Chandler. 

"Mr. Fowler, of Fowler & Co., favored the tariff adopted hy the Boston 
merchants, claiming that the man who draws the sample practically fixes 
the value of duty. 

"Mr. Minturn remarked that in several instances his firm had made 
tests with the polariscope, and that there was a difference of trom two to 
three and a half points on the same sugars. 

"George Muller, of Muller & Co., said that then the instrument must 
have been out of order, or the person handling it did not understand his 
business. 

"Finally a plan, submitted by Hon. J. W. Candler, of Boston, on behalf 
of a large number of the Boston trade, and recommending the use of the 
polariscope by the Government for the purposes of classifjdng and assess- 
ing duties on all sugars not above No. 13 D. S., was substantially adoj^ted 
by the meeting." 



103 

" I do not think it expedient to employ the polariscope 
in fixing the duties on raw sug-ar ; it will complicate the 
collection and open new iacilities for fraud. 

" The plan proposed by tlie tariff bill now before Con- 
gress is the worst one possible. It divides sugars into 
classes paying different duties ; these classes depending 
on the tests by the polariscope, a difference of one |)er 
cent, will carry a sugar from one class to another. Thus, 
if it polarizes 87, it pays $2.60 per 100; if 88, $2.85 per 
100; this would make a difference of more than $100,000 
a 3'ear to a refiner working one hundred hogsheads a 
day, or over $600,000 a year to some of our largest re- 
fineries. 

" The ordinary testing of sugars by the polariscope is 
not accurate within one per cent. ; in lact, differences of 
two or three per cent, or e\'en more may occur when 
different samples are taken from the same lot of sugar and 
tested b}^ different chemists. Two identical samples can 
hardly be taken from the same lot of hogsheads. 

" The result of the test with the polariscope will be 
aiTected by various circumstances. The exposure of the 
sample to the air may result in a loss or gain of water 
according to the weather, and thus raise or lower the test. 
The care and skill of the chemist, the accuracy of his 
balance, weights, measuring flasks and polariscope, the 
temperature at which he makes his solution and examines 
it in the instrument — all affect the result. It is thus prac- 
tically impossible to fix the value of the sugars by the 
polariscope within i , 2 or 3 per cent. The presence in the 
sugar of other substances which also influence the read- 
ings of the polariscope is important — substances constantly 
present in varying quantities. 

'' It thus appears that the errors in determining the 
value of raw sugar by the polariscope are liable to in- 
crease the duty to an extent sufficient to ruin the refiner. 
If this is true when the sampling and testing is honestly 
performed, what must be the result if the doubt is syste- 
matically turned to the advantage of the refiner, or if spe 



104 

cial efforts are made to increase still further the error in 
his favor. 

'' This plan of classification by tlie polariscope will give the 
greatest opportunities for frauds and zvill, I fear, if adopted, 
make it impossible for honest men to carry on the Jjusiness of 
refining sugars 

The evidence in respect to the practicability or expe- 
diency of the adoption on the part of the Federal Govern- 
ment of the polariscope as a means of classifying sugars 
for revenue purposes amounts, therefore, in few words to 
simply this. 

All are agreed, and in the face of the experience of the 
world it would be impossible"^to have any other rational 
opinion, that the polariscope is a safe and sure instrumen- 
tality in the hands of the merchant and practical business 
man for classifying raw sugars strictly iu accordance with 
their value, and irrespective of their color. A very con- 
siderable number of persons, not lacking in intelligence or 
experience, who hold to this belief, are at the same time 
equally decided in the opinion that what will answer for 
the merchant and manufacturer will not answer for the 
Government ; or they in effect assert, that while the 
American business man and various foreign Govern- 
ments have no difficulty Avhatever in determining by the 
agency of the polariscope the value of any description of 
sugar they may respectively desire to buy, sell or tax, it 
is utterly hopeless for the Federal Government, by reason 
of the inefficiency or dishonesty of its revenue agents, 
to expect to obtain corresponding results by the employ- 
ment of a corresponding agency. There is no use in 
mincing words in respect to this matter. The charge in- 
volved in the position taken by such gentlemen as 
Lawson W. Fuller, WiUiam E. Booth and Wil- 
ham Butler of New York, D. J. Foley of Baltimore, 
Armstrong & Co. of New Haven, and others, is either 
true or it is not true ; and if true constitutes as weighty 
an item of practical evidence against the tendency and 
perpetuity of free political institutions as has ever been 



I05 

presented. It may assist somewhat in the formation of 
an inteUigent jndgment in respect to this question to 
here point out that the difficulties alleged to be inevitably 
contingent on the use of the polariscope by the Govern- 
ment are the same in kind though probably more 
formidable — as those experienced in the imposition of 
taxes — both internal and tariff — on distilled spirits. In 
every case the tax commences with the proof gallon — 50 
per cent, pure alcohol as a basis — and increases pro- 
portionally as the strength of the liquor or the amount of 
alcohol contained in it increases. This strength is deter- 
mined by the use of that form of the hydrometer termed 
the alcoholmeter, an instrument of great delicacy, and as, 
the tax increases with the increase of every degree above^ 
proof, the greatest accuracy in its use and observation is 
necessar}^, while the opportunity for commission of fraud 
is great ; an error of a single degree in the use of the 
hydrometer involving a much greater amount of fraud 
or loss, than an error of a degree in the use of the polari- 
scope ; as will be evident when it is remembered that the 
present average ad valorem duties on sugars is about 62 per 
cent., while the ^Y^'^^wtadvalorcm duty on domestic distilled 
spirits is over 300 per cent., and in the case of imported 
liquors is still greater. And yet the Government has 
never experienced any difficulty in finding men worthy 
of being intrusted with the use of the hydrometer fcr 
the assessment of distilled spirits ; and although enormous 
frauds have been perpetrated (as they undoubtedly are 
now), in this department of the revenue, the evidence is 
conclusive that in nine cases out of ten they have been 
effected through an agency far coarser and more ])alp.a- 
ble than tampering with the hydrometer. 

And again, if the extra cost which the adoption of this 
scientific test — /. e., of the polariscope — may entail uj)on 
the Government is brought forward as an objection to its 
introduction and use in the customs, it may be further 
remarked, that if Congress should add only one-hall 
cent on every 100 pounds, or one 200th of n cent per 



io6 

pound additional to the duty on all sugars imported, the 
Treasury will receive annually an additional revenue of 
lrom$8o,coo to $100,000; a sum sufficient to pay for more 
polariscope experts than are now employed in the sugar 
trade throughout the world. 

Influetzce of the presence of glucose on the accuracy of ike 
polariscope. — One objection to the use of the polariscope 
for testing the strength of sugars recently brought for- 
ward, and discussed as if it constituted an argument 
against the reliability of this instrument which was 
wholly unanswerable, is, that when glucose or gmpe 
sugar is present in raw cane-sugar, the polarization is 
affected (i. e., increased) in such a manner as to indicate a 
degree of saccharine strength altogether disproportionate 
to what really exists in the sample under examination. 
But that this objection has its only foundation in an en- 
entire misapprehension of the facts in case, will appear 
from the following statement : Thus, there are at least 
two different substances to which the general name "^Z?/- 
cose'' has been applied. The first, known in chemistry as 
dextro glucose^' from the circumstance that it causes 
rotation to the right of the ray of light in the polariscope, 
and to a degree much greater than is occasioned by cane 
sugar is supposed tb be identical with grape sugar or 
starch sugar. B?tt this variety of glucose never occurs tn 
cane sugar ^ unless added intentionally ; and if added 
intentionally to imported sugars would subject them to 
the payment, under the polariscope test, of an exceptional 
and unnecessary rate of duty. In a recent experiment 
made for the w^riter: an indication of 194 (right) was ob- 
tained from this sugar, which if an equivalent of eane 
sugar had been used would have given but 100. 

The other, or second variety of glucose, called lacvo 
glucose, from Khe circumstance that it causes rotation to 
to the left of the ray of light in the polariscope, is sup- 
posed to be identical with '' fruit" sugar. Its rotation to 
to the left is 33 for a quantity, which if cane sugar were 
used would give 100 to the right. 



Fvirthermore the greatest portion of whatever of natu- 
ral glucose, which may be found in raw or refined sugars, 
exists in the state of inactive glucose ; by which is meant, 
that it has no action whatever on polarized light. What 
this inactive sugar, is has not, as yet, been satisfactorily 
determined ; but some chemical authorities have supposep 
that it may be a mixture, or perhaps a combination, of 
"■ laevo " and " dextro " glucose, in exactly the proportions 
that would enable the one to neutralize the other. If this 
be the case, then, contrary to the general opinion, a little 
dextro glucose does exist in commercial sugars; and for 
every loo parts of fruit sugar there would be required 
lOoXxaV P^i'ts of "starch" or "grape" sugar or very 
nearly 17 per cent, to form inactive glucose. 

Zt^^z'^ glucose, dextro glucose and inactive glucose behave 
in the same manner towards chemical re-agents (copper 
test for example). Polarized light (polariscope) is the only 
agent which can distinguish, or detect, the one from the 
other. 

Which one of the antagonistic opinions respecting the 
accuracy and availal^ilit}' of the polariscope as a Govern- 
ment instrumentalitv for the classification and esting of 
sugars — /'. e., the opinion of FVofessor Henr\' and the com- 
mercial world, or the opioion of Professor Chandler and 
a comparatively few merchants-— is to be accepted as 
true, is a matte]- to be determined exclusiveh' by Con- 
gress. But on the hvi)othesis that this instrument will 
sooner or later, and to a greater or less extent, be made 
an adjimct of our tariff laws in respect to imported 
sugars, various plans or forms of law have been suggested, 
of which the following are the most important. 

The Boston Plan. This plan, which originated with a 
committee of the Boston trade, and has been indorsed 
by nearly every prominent importer and refiner of sugars 
in that City — as well as by a full meeting of the im- 
porters and refiners of sugar held in New VorU, April 
1 8th, 1878 — proposes to make the test of the polariscope 
the sole basis for classifying^ and assessing the duties on 



To8 

all raw sugars, the grades of which are not above No. 
,13, Dutch standard ; it being assumed that all sugars 
below No. 13 in color, must be refined before being fit 
for consumption. 

It commences in the first instance with a duty of ly^V 
cents per pound on all sugars not above No. 13 Dutch 
standard in color and testing by the polariscope 7iot 
above 75 degrees in saccharine strength; which rate 
Avould comprise " all tank-bottom, concretes, syrups 
of cane-juice, melado, concentrated melado, and all grades 
of sugar below No. 7, D. S., and is the same in amount 
(if cents), as is now levied on all these products under the 
existing tariff On all sugars testing by the polariscope 
above 75 degrees in saccharine strength it is further pro- 
posed to levy a itniform increase of tariff of y-^-y of a cent 
per pound (equivalent to 5 cents per 100 pounds) for each 
degree up to 99 degrees; and arranged in the form of a 
table, the specific rates of duty according to this system, 
for each degree of saccharine strength between 75 and 
99, would appear as follows : 

On all syrups, melado, molasses and sugars not above 
No. 13 Dutch standard in color, and testing by the polari- 
scope not above 75 degrees, i-ftfu cents per pound : 

Testing above 75° and not above 76^, \^^-^ cts. per pound. 

li a fj lyO a i( 

>t i( 7n^ " " 

■ »» K 8 T '^ " 

ii a 8-5'-^ *' " 

(( ii 8/1^ " " 

a • »< 8 C^ " " 

35^ ii u 

ii ii 87^ " " 

- << ii . 88*^ " " 



77^^, 


I_85_ 
^10 




a 


78°, 


T 90 

^10 




ii 


79°, 


^To 




ii 


80°, 


2 


a 


u 


81°, 


-10 




ii 


82°, 


;>_! o_ 




a 


83°, 


^ 1 




ii 


84°, 


^To 




(( 


85°, 


2_2_5_ 
^1 uo 




a 


86°, 


9-30 

"loo 




a 


87°, 


35 
^Too" 




ii 


88°, 


9-=^ti 




it 


89°, 


■^1 oil 




ii 



109 
Testing above 89^ and not above 90 , 2y\3^yCts. per pound. 



(( 


(( 


9IO 


(C 


(( 


92^ 2-i-Vo 


(( 


(C 


92^ 


(c 


n 


93°, 2t-Vo 


(( 


(< 


93° 


(( 


(( 


94°, 2t^^o^ 


(( 


(C 


94° 


(( 


C( 


95 ^ 2tVo 


(C 


u 


950 


(( 


(( 


96 ^ 2tV^ 


(( 


(( 


960 


<( 


ii 


97°, 2tV^ 


.( 


u 


97° 


u 


(C 


98^ 2/^0^ 


(( 


i( 


98^ 


(C 


<( 


99°, 2t¥u 



Assuming that all imported sugars from No. 1 3 to above 
No. 20 have been partially or wholly refined and fitted 
for direct consumption in the producing country, 
and that color alone estabUshes their commercial 
value, the Boston Committee, as a part of their system, 
further propose that all such sugars be classified and 
assessed for duty in the following manner : 

On all sugars above No. 13 Dutch standard in color, 
and not above No. 16 Dutch standard in color, 3I cents 
per pound ; — present duty, 2J + 25 p. c. =3.43. 

On all sugars above No. 16 Dutch standard in color, 
and not above No. 20 Dutch standard in color, 3 J cents 
per pound ; — present duty, 3^+25 p. c.=4.o6. 

On all sugars above No. 20 Dutch standard in color, 
and on all refined sugars, 4^ cents per pound ; — present 
duty, 4 cents + 25 p. c. = 5 cents. 

On molasses testing not above 56 ', six cents per gallon. 

On molasses testing above 56°, ten cents per gallon. 

To further assist in the comprehension of this plan, it is 
desirable to here note that the approximate correspond- 
ence between the polariscope test and the gra(ies of raw 
sugar best recognized in commerce may be indicated by 
the following table : 

Polariscopic Test. 

Melado. -Ma q.t + I > 

Concrete., f r ^nd^b lo '^*^" ' \ ^ ^^^^^"^ '^^^ all belo\N No. 13 Dutch 

Common. ... 1 , ^ ^" I ^i standard in color, being and all 

Fair From 82 to 87 per cent. | § must be refined before tit for 

Good " 87 to 92 " ^ consumption. 

Centrifugals. Above . . .92 " j ? 



. \ io 

P/an {involving the use of the po'ariscoJ:e) of the Commit- 
tee of Ways nnd Means of the House of Representatives.— 
The following is the modification of the existing tariff 
on sugars originally reported by the Committee of Ways 
and Means at the first session of the 45th Congress, March, 
1878. 

" Sugar not above number seven, Dutch standard in 
color, and that tests not above eighty by the polariscope, 
including tank-bottoms, concretes, syrups of sugar-cane 
juice, melado, concentrated melado, concentrated molasses, 
and molasses that tests above fifty-two by the polariscope, 
shall pay a duty of two cents and thirty hundredths of a 
cent per pound. 

''Sugar above number seven, and not above number 
ten, Dutch standard in color, and that tests not above 
eighty -five by the polariscope, shall pay a duty of two 
cents and sixty hundredths of a cent per pound. 

'• Sugar above ten, and not above thirteen, Dutch 
standard in color, and that tests not above ninety by the 
poloriscope ; shall pay a duty of two cents^and eighty- 
five hundredths of a cent per pound. 

" Sugar above thirteen, Dutch standard in color, or 
that tests above ninety by the polariscope, shall pay a 
duty of four cents and five hundredths of a cent per 
pound." 

By this bill the rates of duty on all varieties of im- 
ported sugars were considerably advanced. 

The Polariscope as a Detective. — ^On the hypothesis that 
the above plan of the Boston Committee may involve 
too radical a change in the existing tariff and its adminis- 
tration, and excite too great an amount of opposition in 
Congress, several modifications of the prospective use and 
application of the polariscope by the customs have been 
proposed ; in all of which it is contemplated to allow the 
existing tariff on. sugars to remain unchanged, but to 
bring in the polariscope, as it were, as a detective, for 
the sole purpose of confining to their proper class — i. e., 



Ill 

of saccharine strength — such sugars as might under an ex- 
clusive color test only claim admission into our ports at 
a rate ot duty disproportionate to their true value. 
And as such irregularities can only exist in respect to one 
variety of sugars, namely, the *' new process," or " cen- 
trifugal,'" it is claimed that an amendment to the present 
laws, providing, in effect, " tJiat all sugars not above No. 1% 
in color, testing or containing over 92 per cent, of pure sugar 
should pay the rate of duty imposed on sugars grading betiveen 
No. 10 and No. 13, Dutch standardT would cffectuallt 
check such abuses or irregularities. 

Of such other proposed modifications the fc^llowing have 
received the most attention : 

Plan of the Treasury Department. — Under date of Feb- 
ruary 13th, 1878, the Secretary of the Treasury addressed 
a letter to the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and 
Means, of which the following is an extract : 

" It would very largely aid the Government in the col- 
lection of the revenue from sugar if measures coidd be 
adopted at once by which this department could be 
authorized to use a test of saccharine strength as an aid 
in the assessment of duties on sugar. I therefore submit 
a form of bill, c^c." 

Be it enacted that the Secretary of the Treasury be and is 
hereby auttxorized to cause proper tests of the saccharine 
strength to be made by the polariscopc, or otherivise, of the 
Dutch standards of sugar by which the duty on sugar is 
now regulated under Schedule G, Section 2,504, Revised 
Statutes ; and whenever it is found that any imported 
sugar is above the test in strength of the standard in color 
to which it belongs, the duty shall be assessed at the rate 
prescribed for the number of the standard to which it 
conforms in test of saccharine strength. 

Another form of bill introduced into the House of 
Representatives at the last session, and which was de- 
signed to regulate specifically by enactment, what the bill 



112 

submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury proposed to 
do generally, reads as follows : 

" That, in the classification of imported sugars for as- 
sessment of duty, any sugars which shall be found to be 
not above No. 7, Dutch standard, in color, but which 
shall test by the polariscope above eighty -seven and not 
above ninety-two degrees of saccharine strength, shall 
pay the rate of duty chargeable on sugar above No. 7 
and not above No. 10, Dutch standard, in coh^r ; and any 
sugars which shall not be above No. 10, Dutch standard, 
in color, which shall test on polarization over ninety-two 
degree of saccharine strength, shall pay the rate of duty 
appropriate to sugars above No. 10 and not above No. 13, 
Dutch standard, in color." 

Other plans or systems for obviating the defects of 
the existing tariff have been proposed, but the above, it 
is believed, cover all that are likely to receive the con- 
sideration of Congress or prove in any degree remedial. 

Conclusion. 

From the above detailed examination and review of the 
relations of sugar to the commerce, agriculture, manufac- 
turing industry, and revenues of the country the following 
conclusions in brief are believed to be legitimately de- 
ducible : 

1. Refined sugar, as the cheapest and best, has within a 
comparatively recent period almost entirely superseded 
in the United States and in most other countries of high 
civilization, the direct consumption of raw (impure) sugar as 
an article of food ; and there is no probability, even if the 
same were desirable, that anything except a revival of the 
most absolute and sumptuary laws can ever alter in this 
respect the tastes and habits of the masses. 

2. The evidence seems to be incontrovertible that so 
far as the mere process or art is concerned, sugars can 
now be refined in the United States to any degree of 



purity, cheaper than in any other country. The claim, 
therefore, that through any modification of the tariff, or 
in the event of the abohtion of all duties, sugars suited to 
the wants of the masses can be sold at a cheaper rate — 
absolutely or comparatively — than they now are in the 
United States, rests upon no good and sufficient founda- 
tion. 

3. Under such circumstances, the refining of sugar in 
the United States has become a business of such colossal 
proportions, and gives promise of such further future 
development, especially in the department of exports, 
that it is a matter of the first importance for the Govern- 
ment to see ; that in any modification of the tariff nothing 
whatever be done which shall in any way threaten or 
imperil so important a branch of our national industry. 

4. The present duties on imported sugars are excessive ; 
averaging 62 per cent, of their value at their place of 
exportation, a rate in excess of the tariff on silks, laces, 
champagnes, jewelry, and other articles of luxury ; and 
more than double the average tariff on all imported 
merchandise. 

5. The present method of classifying and assessing 
duties on imported sugars exclusively by the color test, 
or the so-called Dutch standards, is obsolete, unreliable, 
and an encouragement to fraud; has been discarded 
alike by all importers, merchants and refiners in their 
comm.ercial transactions ; by nearly all foreign Govern- 
ments assessing ad va/oretn duties on sugars; and ought to 
be speedily modified or repealed. 

6. The adoption of a uniform rate on all imported raw 
sugars, or one rate of duty on all raw sugars grading up 
to No. 16 or even No. 13 in color, D.S. is unadvisable for 
the following reasons : 

(a.) It would prohibit the importation into the United 
States of sugars of a low grade and price, such as the 



114 

refiners of all countries must have to work most econom- 
ically ; and such, as without taxing the consumers either 
indirectly through tariff protection, or directly through 
any increase on the price of good marketable sugars, 
will afford the greatest opportunity for the profitable 
employment of American labor and capital. 

(b.) It would give a practical monopoly ot the Ameri- 
can sugar market to the producers of the high price, 
centrifugal sugars, mainly the product of slave labor in 
the Spanish West India Islands ; countries which main- 
tain discriminating tariff tnxes against the import and 
sale of the products of the United States, and conse- 
quently while selling much to this country, intentionally 
bu)^ little in return.* 

{c.) It would revive and enforce in the United States in 
this latter fourth of the nineteenth century the monstrous 
doctrine, that the Government may deprive any or all of 
its citizens of the right to buy any kind or class of raw 
material necessary or desirable for the prosecution of any 
legitimate branch of industry which they may desire to 
pursue. 

id.) It would endanger the receipt of the requisite amount 
of revenue which the Government considers it necessary 
and expedient to annually collect from the duties on 
imported sugars (for proof of this point see page 43 of 
this review). 

{e.) By depriving the American sugar consumers of the 
benefits arising from the existing sharp competition be- 

* It is well understood, that on the hypothesis of the enactment by 
Congress during the present winter (1878-9) of a one rate of duty on all 
imported sugars not above No. 13, Dutch standard, in color, a gigantic 
stock company is contemplated and in process of organization for the 
erection of an immense refinery in Havanna, for the purpose of preparing 
sugars of the highest possible grade permissible under the uniform rates 
for the supply of the Awerican market. 



tween the domestic refiners and the foreign producers of 
centrifugal or new process sug^ars (as would be inevitably 
the case if the former are deprived of the opportunity of 
using the very low grades of sugars trom which alone 
they can advantageously produce the better qualities;, 
the average price ol good sugars to the masses of our 
people must certainly be increased. 

(/.) It would strike a blow at our already feeble and 
struggling shipping interest : for all experience shows 
that the moment the discrimination against the importa- 
tion of low grade sugars created by the tariff of 1861 was 
removed by the tariff revision of 1870, the American ton- 
nage employed in the carrying trade between certain 
countries, which was before limited, greatly and rapidly 
increased. 

7. The ad valorcvi dut}* on sugar, acknowledged by all 
(who have ever made the subject of taxation a study) to 
be the most equitable and just duty that can be devised, 
is objected to by the Government for fear of undervalua- 
tions, and by the merchants for fear of complications 
with officials. Government law suits, spies, and persecu- 
tions. Its enactment, therefore, is regarded by all inter- 
ested as both impracticable and inexpedient. That these 
objections should be made, reveals, however, the deplor- 
able facts, that the Goa ernment, on the one hand, acknowl- 
edges a doubt of the ability as well as of the honesty of 
its officials; and that the merchants, on the other, labor 
under a system of terror, engendered by a national fiscal 
policy which has made the employment of spies and in- 
formers an almost necessary adjunct for the collection of 
our revenues. 

8. Unless we are ready to acknowledge that Federal 
officials are entirely unreliable, and that honesty and 
ability in the public service are unattainable, there is no 
logical or rational escape from the conclusion that the 



Lid 

system now universally adopted among merchants for 
determining the value of raw sugars (under No, 13) in 
buying and selling, namely, that of the polariscope, should 
also be the S3^stem adopted by the Government for accom- 
plishing the same ends, i. e., the assessment and equitable 
apportionment of the customs on the importations of raw 
sugars. There can be no objections to the adequacy of 
this test of the value of raw sugars, save such as are based 
on a disbelief in the ability and honesty of the officials into 
whose hands it may be intrusted for administration ; as 
objections alleged to be founded on scientific reasons, are 
proved by the testimony of the highest authorities and 
all commercial experience, to be altogether fanciful and 
not worthy of consideration. 

9. In respect to the^^statement freely made, that the use 
of the polariscope for the testing and classification of 
sugars will create a greater opportunity for the perpetra- 
tion of fraud than exists under the present system of clas- 
sifying by color, the facts lead to an exactly opposite con- 
clusion. Thus, first, the single circumstance that the 
merchants and refiners all over the world have volun- 
tarily discarded the color test in the buying and selling 
of raw sugars, and adopted the polariscope test as a 
substitute, is conclusive that the possibilities for fraud 
and erroneous classification under the latter test are not 
greater than under the former. Trade, under the guid- 
ance of self-interest, does not abandon a long-established 
system lor one less perfect, but moves in a directly op- 
posite direction. Second, an error in classification, ac- 
cording to the color tests of the existing tariff, occasions 
a difference in duties of thirty (30) cents per 100 lbs. ; but 
an error in testing by the polariscope involves a differ- 
ence (according to the Boston scale) in duty liability of 
only five (5) cents per 100 lbs. ; and the most strenuous 
opponents of the use of the polariscope do not claim an 
unintentional possibility of error in its intelligent opera- 
tion of over jt wo (^2) or three (3) points as a maximum. 



ri7- 

And if a lower rate ot duty than that proposed by the 
Boston Committee should be adopted, the possible max- 
imum of unintentional error would be even still further 
reduced. 

Again, if a uniform or single sale of duty on all sugars 
not above No. i6 D. S. is adopted, the variation — inten- 
tional or otherwise — of a single shade of color between 
Nos. i6 and 17, would involve loss to the Government of 
revenue of at least one and a half cents per pound — as- 
suming 2 J and 4 cents to be the two rates of duty adopted 
on sugar above and below No. 16. If it was intended to 
create the largest increase of temptation to fraudulently 
undervalue sugars, no better scheme could be adopted. 

10. Under the present system of classifying sugars for 
the assessment of duties, the importation of many varie- 
ties of raw sugars into the United States is absolutely 
prohibited. Such sugars, to an estimated annual amount 
of 448,000,000 of pounds now find their way — to 
the benefit of British trade and commerce — almost ex- 
clusively to England, and are eagerl}^ sought for in the 
market by English refiners. Under the polariscope test 
whatever of benefit may come from the use of such 
sugars — be it little or great — would accrue equally to 
American industry. 

11. If the adoption of t he polariscope as t he .iW^p/t'j'/ for the 
classification and assessment of duties on raw sugars under 
the customs be regarded as involving too radical a change 
for immediate acceptance, its recognition and use to the 
extent and for the purpose of preventing the introduc- 
tion under the present color test, of sugars of a high 
saccharine strength that undervaluations, would effectually 
remedy one of the most serious objections to the existing 
tariff, and not be attended in its execution with any 
serious difficulty. This latter result could be best at- 
tained by adding to the existing tariff a proviso, t/tat all 
sugars grading below No. 1 3 Dutch standard, and testing by 
the polariscope in excess of ()2 degrees of saccharine strength 



shall pay the rates of dut}- now impose^ on sugars above No. 
10, an4 not above No 13, D. S. The point of 92 degrees 
saccharine strength is selected because it is the testimony 
of experts that the new process sugars, of low color, 
never test under 92 ; and that sugars made in a vacuum 
pan in order to have a value above old process sugar, 
cannot be made of such inferior saccharine strength. Such 
a pro vis 3 furthermore, would do away with all the real 
claims that can fairly be urged in favor of one rate of duty 
on all grades of imported sugars. 

12. If the Treasur}^ Department is ready to acknowl- 
edge its utter powerlessness and inability to administer 
correctly to the full extent, or in degree, a test open to and 
adopted by every importer and refiner of sugar in the 
countr}^, the undersigned must confess his corresponding 
inability to suggest a remedy for existing evils connected 
with the maintenance of a high or revenue rate of duty 
on the importation of sugars. But he is not willing to 
admit that the Government is really open to any such 
imputation of weakness and decay ; but on the contrary 
feels satisfied, that under a correct organization, and the 
payment\)f adequate compensation to persons of acknowl- 
edged ability and honesty, the determination by the use 
of the polariscope of the values of all raw sugars, and the 
assesment of equitable and strictly proportionate duties 
thereon, can be effected without difficulty. 

Finally, whatever system for testing and classifying 
sugars may be adopted, and whatever modifications in 
the rates ol duty on imported sugars may be hereafter 
enacted, a better organization for the administration of the 
law than now exists ought to be instituted. A department 
of business of the country, which furnishes about 30 per 
cent, of the total customs revenue and the collection of 
which involves methods of delicacy and precision, is 
worthy of being made a separate bureau in the Customs 
service under the charge of an official of the highest 
character for integrity and ability. Such an official in 
the first instance ought to be paid a good and- — in view of 



119 

the temptations to which he might be subjected — perhaps 
a large salary. It would be the the poorest of economy on 
the part of the Government not to so compensate him. 

Second, — His tenure of office ought to be made, if pos- 
sible, by understanding, as it cannot be by law, free from 
all political contingencies and dependent alone on the 
faithful discharge of trust. He should have, especially 
in case of the adoption of the polariscope-test, the selec- 
tion of the experts who are to determine classifications 
and values in all the different ports of the country into 
which sugars are imported, and should especially make 
it his business to see that there should be no discrepancy 
in the action of his experts and appraisers, whatever 
may be their location — in the Atlantic, the Gulf or the 
Pacific States. 

In doing this, the Government would simply pattern 
and be benefited by the practice and experience of Great 
Britain under a condition of affairs corresponding in al- 
most every particular. Thus, in 1854, the Commissioners 
of the British Customs finding that great dissatisfaction 
existed in respect to the methods of assessing and collect- 
ing the duties (then very high) on sugars imported into 
the United Kingdom, committed to one official the 
management of the whole business; embracing the super- 
vision of all docks and quays where sugar was landed, and 
the determination of the qualifications and rules of pro- 
cedure of the sugar assessors in all the various outports 
of the Kingdom. It is hardly necessary to say that such 
an arrangement was subsequently reported as working in 
a manner most satisfactory to both the merchants and the 
Government. 

With the hope that this investigation and report may 
be attended with results in some degree commensurate 
with the labor and time bestowed upon it, 

f remain 

Yours most respectfully, 

Davij-) a. Wflt.s. 
November, J878. 












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